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Aggregation Stage Palette

Drag any of the ~40 MongoDB aggregation stage operators directly onto your pipeline. Search by name or description; drop between stages to insert at the exact position.

What it does

The aggregation pipeline builder has a side panel with two modes: "Wizards" (8 curated use-case cards) and "All stages" (the full $stage catalog as draggable cards). Drag any card onto the drop zone between existing stages and the new stage is inserted at that position with the chosen operator pre-selected, ready to edit.

How to open it

  1. Open any collection and create a new Aggregation pipeline.
  2. Click the "Stages" icon in the toolbar to toggle the side panel open.

The two modes

Wizards (default)

8 use-case-shaped cards (Match documents, Group with statistics, Top-N per group, Join from another collection, etc.). Each card opens a guided form that produces a complete stage with explanations. Best for newcomers and quick one-off pipelines.

All stages

~40 cards, one per MongoDB stage operator. Each card shows the operator name as a badge, a 2-line description, and a tooltip on hover with the full doc text. Best when you know which stage you want and need to insert it quickly.

Drag-drop flow

  1. In "All stages" mode, find the stage you want (use the search box to filter).
  2. Click and hold the card, drag it over your pipeline. A blue horizontal bar appears at every valid drop position (between stages, before the first, after the last).
  3. Release. The new stage is inserted at that position with the operator pre-selected. The stage editor opens with a snippet ready to fill in.

Search

The search box at the top of the panel filters cards by operator name OR description text. Type "lookup" to find $lookup and $graphLookup. Type "geo" to find $geoNear. Type "window" to find $setWindowFields.

What is covered

The full MongoDB aggregation stage catalog (~40 operators):

  • $match · $project · $group · $sort · $limit · $skip
  • $lookup · $graphLookup · $unwind · $addFields · $set · $unset
  • $bucket · $bucketAuto · $facet · $count · $sample
  • $out · $merge · $redact · $replaceRoot · $replaceWith
  • $search · $vectorSearch · $geoNear · $densify · $fill
  • $unionWith · $setWindowFields · $sortByCount · $indexStats · $collStats