Aspects of the present disclosure are directed to an integration framework for two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) elements in an artificial reality (XR) environment. The 2D and 3D integration framework can implement a two-layered application programming interface (API) system, where a developer can use a declarative API to define nodes by executing pre-defined functions, and an imperative API defines to define node by specifying one or more functions for those nodes. The framework can traverse a component tree of such nodes to extract and add the 2D elements onto a 2D panel in a first pass. In a second pass, the framework can extract the 3D elements, and determine how the 2D and 3D elements translate into a 3D world view. Based on this determination, the framework can draw selected 2D and 3D elements into the 3D world view, which can be rendered in the XR environment on an XR device.