diff --git a/src/plugins/kibana_legacy/tsconfig.json b/src/plugins/kibana_legacy/tsconfig.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..709036c9e82f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/plugins/kibana_legacy/tsconfig.json
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+{
+  "extends": "../../../tsconfig.base.json",
+  "compilerOptions": {
+    "composite": true,
+    "outDir": "./target/types",
+    "emitDeclarationOnly": true,
+    "declaration": true,
+    "declarationMap": true
+  },
+  "include": ["../../../typings/**/*", "public/**/*", "server/**/*", "config.ts"],
+  "references": [{ "path": "../../core/tsconfig.json" }]
+}
diff --git a/tsconfig.json b/tsconfig.json
index cf112b26a2cbb..92e5b9654acd7 100644
--- a/tsconfig.json
+++ b/tsconfig.json
@@ -3,18 +3,14 @@
   "compilerOptions": {
     "tsBuildInfoFile": "./build/tsbuildinfo/kibana"
   },
-  "include": [
-    "kibana.d.ts",
-    "src/**/*",
-    "typings/**/*",
-    "test_utils/**/*"
-  ],
+  "include": ["kibana.d.ts", "src/**/*", "typings/**/*", "test_utils/**/*"],
   "exclude": [
     "src/**/__fixtures__/**/*",
     "src/test_utils/**/*",
     "src/core/**/*",
-    "src/plugins/kibana_utils/**/*",
-    "src/plugins/kibana_react/**/*"
+    "src/plugins/kibana_legacy/**/*",
+    "src/plugins/kibana_react/**/*",
+    "src/plugins/kibana_utils/**/*"
     // In the build we actually exclude **/public/**/* from this config so that
     // we can run the TSC on both this and the .browser version of this config
     // file, but if we did it during development IDEs would not be able to find