Using --plugin-dir parameter when starting Kibana

Question

I am developing plugins for Kibana 5.2.1 on Windows 10.

I have the following directory structure:

• KibanaAll
  • Kibana (this is the regular Kibana installation)
  • Plugins
    • MyPlugin1
    • MyPlugin2

To start Kibana with a single plugin, I go to the Kibana directory in a terminal (Windows PowerShell), and use the following command:

.\bin\kibana.bat --dev --plugin-path "../plugins/MyPlugin1"

This works fine, using the plugin-path parameter.

Note: I was having problems with npm start since it uses the linux script, so I use the bat script directly

---

Now, I want Kibana to use all my plugins, so I use the plugin-dir parameter with the following command

.\bin\kibana.bat --dev --plugin-dir "../plugins"

I get this error:

Error: Unmet requirement "elasticsearch" for plugin "MyPlugin1"

See the full error dump here. MyPlugin1 is indeed requiring elasticsearch, but I do not get this error when using plugin-path parameter.

Am I using the --plugin-dir parameter incorrectly? How can I make it work?