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twenty/packages/twenty-docs/developers/extend/apps/layout/views.mdx
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Paul Rastoin 0c545bcdeb [BREAKING-CHANGE] Centralize system View viewField side effect (#23081) 
# Introduction

Closes https://github.com/twentyhq/core-team-issues/issues/2669

Part of the `isSystemSideEffect` engine-ownership effort. Until now, a
custom object's default **INDEX** table view (`All {objectLabelPlural}`)
and its view fields were built imperatively in `ObjectMetadataService`
with random `v4()` identifiers, while `twenty-standard` authored its own
copies with hardcoded literals. The two never converged, an object
rename could drift the view, and nothing marked these rows as
engine-owned.

This PR makes the metadata side-effect engine the **single owner** of
the INDEX view and its view fields, on name-free deterministic
identifiers, for custom and standard objects alike.

## Core design

- **Name-free deterministic identity.** The INDEX view identifier
derives from `object identifier + ViewKey.INDEX`
(`getSystemViewUniversalIdentifier`); each view-field identifier derives
from `view identifier + field identifier`
(`getViewFieldUniversalIdentifier`). An object rename (with a pinned
object identifier) keeps the same view, losslessly.
- **`isSystemSideEffect: true` is provenance.** Every INDEX view / view
field the engine emits is flagged system-owned, so manifest deletion
inference never drops it. The flag follows the view: a view field
inherits its parent view's flag.
- **The engine is the sole owner of the INDEX view.** It always emits
it; a caller providing one with the same derived identifier is a genuine
conflict surfaced by the engine's reserved-identifier collision, not
silently deferred.

## Changes

### Shared (`twenty-shared`)

- `getIndexViewUniversalIdentifier` →
`getSystemViewUniversalIdentifier`, now taking a `viewKey` (generalizes
to any singleton engine-owned view).
- Standard field identifiers extracted into a new
`STANDARD_OBJECT_FIELDS` constant, so both an object's `fields` and its
INDEX view read the same field identifiers.
- `buildStandardObjectIndexView` derives the standard INDEX view +
view-field identifiers from `STANDARD_OBJECT_FIELDS`, replacing the
hardcoded literals in `standard-object.constant.ts`.

### Metadata side-effect engine (custom objects)

- **`objectSystemFieldsAndIndexViewOnCreate`** (replaces
`objectSystemFieldsOnCreate`): on object creation, provisions the 7
reserved system fields **and** the INDEX view with one view field per
displayable system field, all `isSystemSideEffect: true`.
- **`fieldIndexViewFieldOnCreate`** (new): on field creation, provisions
the field's INDEX view field. Object created in the same batch →
visible, positioned before the system view fields; pre-existing object →
hidden, appended (preserving the historical `createOneField` behavior).
Both branches resolve the INDEX view by its derived identifier (single
map access, never a scan).
- **`fieldSystemViewFieldsOnDelete`** (new): on field deletion,
cascade-deletes every engine-owned view field displaying it.
- **`objectSystemSideEffectsOnDelete`** (extended): now also
cascade-deletes the object's engine-owned views and their view fields
(in addition to system fields, indexes, searchFieldMetadata). Every
lookup walks a foreign-key aggregator down from the deleted object, so
the work is proportional to what the object owns, never to workspace
size.
- Object-create and field-create positions are derived from the same
caller-input field list, so the INDEX view layout is contiguous with no
handler-ordering dependency.
- `view` / `viewField` added to the side-effect companion metadata names
for `fieldMetadata` and `objectMetadata`.

### Reserved-identifier invariant

A caller can never define an entity whose identifier collides with one a
system side effect produces: caller inputs are forced
`isSystemSideEffect: false` at every entry point (API and app-manifest
transpilers), and the engine raises
`RESERVED_SYSTEM_UNIVERSAL_IDENTIFIER`, aborting the operation, when a
system emission lands on a caller-claimed identifier. Covered by a new
engine-level test.

### Caller-side provisioning removed

The imperative INDEX view + view-field provisioning is removed from
`ObjectMetadataService.createOneObject`. The record-page `FIELDS_WIDGET`
view is intentionally left caller-side and deferred to the follow-up
(see below).

### `twenty-standard` convergence

Standard INDEX views and their view fields converge on the same
derived-identifier + `isSystemSideEffect: true` scheme as the engine.
`twenty-standard` syncs through the from/to migration path (which never
runs the side-effect engine), so it authors this INDEX surface itself,
matching what the engine produces for custom objects.

## Rollout

Two `2.26.0` workspace commands, running after the `2.25`
messageCampaign commands:

- `upgrade:2-26:reconcile-index-view-universal-identifier` re-owns the
INDEX views of the **twenty-standard and workspace-custom applications**
and all their view fields to the derived identifiers with
`isSystemSideEffect: true`, in a single per-workspace transaction. Each
view field identifier is keyed on the application of the **displayed
field** (an app or user column on a standard INDEX view converges too).
Soft-deleted views and view fields are skipped: one can coexist with an
active successor on the same derivation inputs and both would derive the
same identifier. Children reference the view by primary key, so the
re-own is lossless.
- `upgrade:2-26:demote-and-backfill-application-index-view` handles
**manifest-installed applications**, which never had their INDEX view
auto-provisioned: every caller-authored INDEX view of another
application is demoted to `key: null` (a plain additional view under its
manifest identifier), then every application object gets the
engine-owned INDEX view and its full view-field layout backfilled
through the migration pipeline's legacy path (no side-effect expansion),
views committed before view fields across applications since a view
field belongs to the application owning its field. Idempotent and
retry-safe: engine-owned INDEX views are neither demoted nor
re-backfilled, and view creation and view-field creation are gated
independently, so a retry after a partial failure still backfills the
missing view fields of an already-committed view.

Both support `--dry-run` and invalidate the full flat-maps closure
(parents aggregate the re-owned identifiers, children resolve them as
universal foreign keys, and page-layout widget universal configurations
resolve view PKs at cache-build time).

The `2.25` `upgrade:2-25:add-message-campaign-name-field` command is
adapted to resolve the campaign INDEX view by its INDEX key on the
object instead of by universal identifier: it now runs before the
reconcile, on workspaces still holding legacy identifiers.

## ⚠️ Breaking change

This PR **mutates 187 previously hardcoded universal identifiers** — the
standard objects' INDEX views and their view fields (the literals
removed from `standard-object.constant.ts`), now derived.

- **Handled by the `2.26` commands above** for all existing workspaces.
- **The INDEX key is now engine-reserved.** The flat view validator
rejects caller-created INDEX views (API and manifest inputs are forced
`isSystemSideEffect: false`) and enforces a single non-deleted INDEX
view per object; `view.key` is no longer a comparable/updatable
property, so no writer can promote or demote a view after creation.
`ViewManifest.key` is deprecated and ignored (manifest views are always
additional views, so old apps keep syncing and demoted views are not
promoted back); the REST/GraphQL create path now rejects `key: INDEX`.
In-repo example apps (`hello-world`, `document-generator`) no longer
declare it.
- **12 declared-but-never-seeded standard INDEX view field identifiers
deleted** (the former `preservedViewFields` on `timelineActivity`,
`workflowRun` and `workspaceMember`): after the reconcile, no workspace
row references them.
- **`computeFlatViewFieldsToCreate` now derives view field identifiers**
instead of drawing `v4()` ones, which also changes what the committed
`1-23` record-page backfill produces going forward (deliberate,
documented in-code).
- **Record-page views and view fields are not affected** (identifiers
unchanged).
- **In-repo apps: `twenty-last-contact` updated.** It was the only app
declaring explicit INDEX view fields (10 columns across `allPeople` /
`allCompanies` / `allOpportunities`) through manifest `viewFields`.
Those target identifiers are now engine-owned and derived, so the
manifest inputs no longer resolve and install failed with `View not
found`. The app now declares only its fields; the engine's
`fieldIndexViewFieldOnCreate` provisions the matching INDEX view field
automatically. No other app under `packages/twenty-apps` references any
of the 187 mutated identifiers, and apps that target standard views
point at record-page views (e.g. `real-estate` →
`opportunityRecordPageFields`) or their own objects (`twenty-partners`),
all unchanged.

### Loss of granularity for app maintainers

The engine now owns the INDEX view field of every field a caller adds to
an object, so app maintainers lose direct control over those columns.
Previously an app could target the engine-owned INDEX view with an
explicit manifest `viewField` and set its `position` and `isVisible`.
Now `fieldIndexViewFieldOnCreate` appends a **hidden** view field in
caller-input order on field creation, so:

- Columns an app previously showed at a **dedicated position** and
**visible** (e.g. `twenty-last-contact`'s last-contact columns) become
**hidden** and **appended in input order** after install.
- There is currently **no manifest way to override** the
engine-provisioned INDEX view field's position, visibility, or size.

This is a deliberate regression accepted for the sake of
single-ownership, and app maintainers should expect their INDEX columns
to move/hide after upgrading. A follow-up override API will let
maintainers reclaim per-field control over the engine-provisioned INDEX
view field.

## Testing

- Unit specs for each handler: object create (system fields + INDEX
view/view fields, override, position offset), field create (same-batch
vs existing-object, non-displayable noop, no-INDEX-view noop), field
delete, object delete (fields/indexes/searchFieldMetadata/views/view
fields cascade, reverse-relation view field on another object).
- Engine-level test for the reserved-identifier collision.
- `twenty-standard` guard test that its INDEX views/view fields stay on
the derived scheme and stay system-owned.
- Integration test: full engine provisioning of the INDEX view/view
fields on object creation, same view id preserved across an object
rename, and cascade delete on object deletion.

## Follow-up

The full record-page stack (record-page view, its view fields, view
field groups, page layout / tab / widget) is still built imperatively
and moves into the engine in
https://github.com/twentyhq/core-team-issues/issues/2721.
2026-07-29 13:32:21 +00:00

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---
title: Views
description: Ship pre-configured saved views — column order, filters, groups — for objects in your app.
icon: 'list'
---
A **view** is a saved configuration for how records of an object are displayed: which fields appear, their order, whether they're visible, and any filters or groups applied. Use `defineView()` to ship pre-configured views with your app.
Every object automatically gets its main list view (the "All ..." table an `OBJECT` navigation item opens) provisioned by the server — including the objects your app creates, with one column per field your app declares. Views you define with `defineView()` are always **additional** views on top of that default one.
```ts src/views/example-view.ts
import { defineView } from 'twenty-sdk/define';
import { EXAMPLE_OBJECT_UNIVERSAL_IDENTIFIER } from '../objects/example-object';
import { NAME_FIELD_UNIVERSAL_IDENTIFIER } from '../objects/example-object';
export default defineView({
universalIdentifier: 'a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890',
name: 'All example items',
objectUniversalIdentifier: EXAMPLE_OBJECT_UNIVERSAL_IDENTIFIER,
icon: 'IconList',
position: 0,
fields: [
{
universalIdentifier: 'f926bdb7-6af7-4683-9a09-adbca56c29f0',
fieldMetadataUniversalIdentifier: NAME_FIELD_UNIVERSAL_IDENTIFIER,
position: 0,
isVisible: true,
size: 200,
},
],
});
```
## Key points
- `objectUniversalIdentifier` specifies which object this view applies to. It can be a custom object you defined or a standard Twenty object.
- The object's main list view is server-owned: `key` is deprecated and ignored, so a manifest view can never claim it. Ship a `VIEW` navigation item if you want your view one click away in the sidebar.
- `fields` controls which columns appear and in what order. Each field references a `fieldMetadataUniversalIdentifier`. To reference an auto-created system field such as `createdAt`, see [Targeting System Fields](/developers/extend/apps/data/system-fields).
- You can also declare `filters`, `filterGroups`, `sorts`, `groups`, and `fieldGroups` for advanced configurations.
- `position` controls ordering when multiple views exist for the same object.
## Optional properties
| Property | Values | Description |
|----------|--------|-------------|
| `type` | `ViewType.TABLE` (default), `ViewType.KANBAN`, `ViewType.CALENDAR` | How records are laid out. (`FIELDS_WIDGET`, `TABLE_WIDGET`, `KANBAN_WIDGET`, and `CALENDAR_WIDGET` also exist but are used internally by page-layout widgets.) |
| `visibility` | `ViewVisibility.WORKSPACE` (default), `ViewVisibility.UNLISTED` | Whether the view is listed for the whole workspace or hidden from pickers. |
| `openRecordIn` | `ViewOpenRecordIn.SIDE_PANEL` (default), `ViewOpenRecordIn.RECORD_PAGE` | Where clicking a record opens it. |
| `sorts` | `{ fieldMetadataUniversalIdentifier, direction: ViewSortDirection.ASC \| DESC }[]` | Default sort order. |
| `isCompact` | `boolean` | Compact row display. |
| `mainGroupByFieldMetadataUniversalIdentifier` + `shouldHideEmptyGroups` | — | Group records (e.g. kanban columns) by a field. |
| `kanbanAggregateOperation`, `kanbanAggregateOperationFieldMetadataUniversalIdentifier`, `kanbanColumnWidth` | `AggregateOperations.*` | Kanban column aggregates and sizing. |
| `calendarLayout`, `calendarFieldMetadataUniversalIdentifier`, `calendarEndFieldMetadataUniversalIdentifier` | `ViewCalendarLayout.DAY` / `WEEK` / `MONTH` | Calendar views: layout, the date field that positions records, and an optional end date field. |
All enums above are exported from `twenty-sdk/define`.
## Filters
A view can ship with pre-applied filters. Each filter has three coordinates: the **field** being filtered, the **operand** (how to compare), and the **value** (what to compare against). All three must line up — using an operand that doesn't apply to a field type will be rejected at sync time.
```ts
import { ViewFilterOperand } from 'twenty-sdk/define';
filters: [
{
universalIdentifier: '...',
fieldMetadataUniversalIdentifier: STATUS_FIELD_UNIVERSAL_IDENTIFIER,
operand: ViewFilterOperand.IS,
value: ['ACTIVE'],
},
],
```
### Supported operands per field type
| Field type | Supported operands |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `TEXT`, `EMAILS`, `FULL_NAME`, `ADDRESS`, `LINKS`, `PHONES`, `RAW_JSON`, `FILES`, `ACTOR`, `ARRAY` | `CONTAINS`, `DOES_NOT_CONTAIN`, `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` |
| `ACTOR.source`, `ACTOR.workspaceMemberId` | `IS`, `IS_NOT`, `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` |
| `SELECT` | `IS`, `IS_NOT`, `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` |
| `MULTI_SELECT` | `CONTAINS`, `DOES_NOT_CONTAIN`, `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` |
| `RELATION` | `IS`, `IS_NOT`, `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` |
| `NUMBER` | `IS`, `IS_NOT`, `GREATER_THAN_OR_EQUAL`, `LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL`, `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` |
| `RATING` | `IS`, `GREATER_THAN_OR_EQUAL`, `LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL`, `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` |
| `CURRENCY`, `CURRENCY.amountMicros` | `GREATER_THAN_OR_EQUAL`, `LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL`, `IS`, `IS_NOT`, `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` |
| `CURRENCY.currencyCode` | `IS`, `IS_NOT`, `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` |
| `DATE`, `DATE_TIME` | `IS`, `IS_RELATIVE`, `IS_IN_PAST`, `IS_IN_FUTURE`, `IS_TODAY`, `IS_BEFORE`, `IS_AFTER`, `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` |
| `BOOLEAN` | `IS` |
| `UUID` | `IS`, `IS_NOT`, `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` |
| `TS_VECTOR` | `VECTOR_SEARCH` |
> Field types with similar names can use entirely different operands — `SELECT` and `MULTI_SELECT` being a common case.
### Value shape per operand
The `value` field is always a JSON-serializable value, but its expected shape depends on the operand:
| Operand family | Value shape | Example |
| ----------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | ------------------------ |
| `IS`, `IS_NOT` on `SELECT` | array of option keys (strings) | `['ACTIVE', 'PENDING']` |
| `CONTAINS`, `DOES_NOT_CONTAIN` on `MULTI_SELECT` | array of option keys (strings) | `['TAG_A']` |
| `IS`, `IS_NOT` on `RELATION` | array of record IDs (uuids) | `['c5a1...']` |
| `CONTAINS`, `DOES_NOT_CONTAIN` on text-like fields | string | `'acme'` |
| `IS`, `IS_NOT` on `NUMBER` | string (the value) | `'5'` |
| `IS` on `RATING` / `UUID` | string (the value) | `'5'` |
| `GREATER_THAN_OR_EQUAL`, `LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL` | string (the bound) | `'10'` |
| `IS`, `IS_BEFORE`, `IS_AFTER` on `DATE` / `DATE_TIME` | ISO 8601 string | `'2025-01-01T00:00:00Z'` |
| `IS_EMPTY`, `IS_NOT_EMPTY` | empty string | `''` |
| `IS` on `BOOLEAN` | `'true'` or `'false'` | `'true'` |
## How views show up in the UI
A view by itself isn't reachable from the sidebar. To make it appear there, pair it with a [navigation menu item](/developers/extend/apps/layout/navigation-menu-items) of type `VIEW` that points at the view's `universalIdentifier`. That's the canonical pattern: every custom object typically ships a default view + a sidebar entry that opens it.
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