Does anyone have a good description of the ES query DSL? In spite of the time I've spent with it, I'm consistently unable to write a reasonable query without going to google first, even for basics.
I have SEVERAL elasticsearch-hellride.txt files stored in my documents folder with a bunch of example queries, because it's so wordy I can't keep it all in my head. I just refer to those every few months when I'm adding functionality. I wouldn't get caught up with having to google for basics. Find some things that work FOR YOU and save those, with your personal notes added in the right places.
Here is what I can recommend as far as plugins go:
This will give you access to a great query interface. You can use the GUIs here to build a few queries until you get a feel for what the JSON should look like.
How I use elasticsearch is kind of... Well. It's just what I do. We have PDFs that are OCRed and we store the text in the document along with ~50 fields that are entered by humans. It's probably too complex, but it's financial data and people love to be super verbose with their queries. I can't rely on the OCR to be perfect for SEC filings.
If you read the ES guide [1], it does a better job explaining how to use the DSL and gives better examples. I also recommend using a client API [2] if one is available for you. They are much easier to use than curl.