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Queries are JSON strings that describe which documents to return. We recommend searching by field values directly because we automatically provide intelligent matching behavior out of the box: 
// Basic search
await index.query({
  filter: { name: "headphones" },
});

// Search across multiple fields (implicit AND)
await index.query({
  filter: { name: "wireless", category: "electronics" },
});

// Search with exact values for non-text fields
await index.query({
  filter: { inStock: true, price: 199.99 },
});

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Smart Matching for Text Fields

When you provide a value directly to a text field (without explicit operators), we automatically apply smart matching. Under the hood, it works like this:
  • Single-word values: Performs a term search, matching the word against tokens in the field.
  • Multi-word values: Combines phrase matching, term matching, and fuzzy matching with different boost weights to rank exact phrases highest while still finding partial matches.
  • Double-quoted phrases: Forces exact phrase matching (e.g., "\"noise cancelling\"" matches only those words adjacent and in order).
For more control, use explicit operators like $phrase, $fuzzy, or $contains.

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Query Options

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1. Pagination with Limit and Offset

Limit controls how many results to return. Offset controls how many results to skip. Together, they provide a way to paginate results. 
// Page 1: first 10 results (with optional offset)
const page1 = await index.query({
  filter: { description: "wireless" },
  limit: 10,
});

// Page 2: results 11-20
const page2 = await index.query({
  filter: { description: "wireless" },
  limit: 10,
  offset: 10,
});

// Page 3: results 21-30
const page3 = await index.query({
  filter: { description: "wireless" },
  limit: 10,
  offset: 20,
});

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2. Sorting Results

Normally, search results are sorted in descending order of query relevance. It is possible to override this, and sort the results by a certain field in ascending or descending order. Only fields defined as .fast() in the schema can be used as the sort field (enabled by default). When using orderBy, the score in results reflects the sort field’s value rather than relevance. 
// Sort by price, cheapest first
await products.query({
  filter: { category: "electronics" },
  orderBy: { price: "ASC" },
});

// Sort by date, newest first
await articles.query({
  filter: { author: "john" },
  orderBy: { publishedAt: "DESC" },
});

// Sort by rating, highest first, which can be combined with LIMIT and OFFSET
await products.query({
  filter: { inStock: true },
  orderBy: { rating: "DESC" },
  limit: 5,
});

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3. Controlling Output

By default, search results include document key, relevance score, and the contents of the document (including the non-indexed fields). For JSON and string indexes, that means the stored JSON objects as whole. For hash indexes, it means all fields and values. 
// Example: Return documents without content
await products.query({
  select: {},
  filter: { name: "headphones" },
});

// Example: Return only `name` and `price`
await products.query({
  select: { name: true, price: true },
  filter: { name: "headphones" },
});
When using aliased fields, use the actual document field name (not the alias) when selecting fields to return. This is because aliasing happens at the index level and does not modify the underlying documents.

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4. Highlighting

Highlighting allows you to see why a document matched the query by marking the matching portions of the document’s fields. By default, <em> and </em> are used as the highlight tags. 
// Highlight matching terms
await products.query({
  filter: { description: "wireless noise cancelling" },
  highlight: { fields: ["description"] },
});

// Custom open and close highlight tags
await products.query({
  filter: { description: "wireless" },
  highlight: { fields: ["description"], preTag: "!!", postTag: "**" },
});
Note that highlighting only works for operators that resolve to terms, such as term or phrase queries.
When using aliased fields, use the alias name (not the actual document field name) when specifying fields to highlight. The highlighting feature works with indexed field names, which are the aliases.