Add search to your app

You will index one model and add a search route. It takes about 15 minutes.

You need

• A MainSDK app with a db model, here posts, and an access action that says who may read it.

1. Declare the index

search:
  driver: db
  indexes:
    posts:
      model: posts
      access: posts.read
      fields:
        text: { search: true, weight: 2 }
        tags: { facet: true, filter: true }

The db driver needs no account. Move to typesense or meilisearch later by changing driver and adding the engine's key and regions.

2. Query as the searcher

import { auth, search } from "mainsdk";

export async function GET(req: Request) {
  const session = await auth.require(req);
  const q = new URL(req.url).searchParams.get("q") ?? "";
  return Response.json(await search.query({ index: "posts", q, for: { type: "user", id: session.user }, highlight: true, limit: 10 }));
}

for is required, and a query without it fails with MAIN-SEARCH-0003. The tenant and access filters run inside the engine's query, so nothing is filtered after the fact.

3. Keep the index current

Writes to the posts model reach the index through the job outbox, never the request path. To rebuild an index, call search.reindex("posts"); it resumes after a crash. search.status("posts") shows what is pending or failed.

Check that it works

• A post you can read appears in the results; one you cannot read does not.
• Stop the engine: the query fails with MAIN-SEARCH-0004, and index changes stay queued.

Next

• Search reference
• Ground an AI answer in search results