API Reference

App Search provides you with a variety of endpoints to craft intuitive, relevant and useful search experiences.

However you choose to wield these APIs, it will be valuable to first explore...

When it comes to schema design, remember four key points:

App Search fields can be one of four different types:

Text fields are at the heart of search.

They enable deeply analyzed full text search.

This is the default type for all new fields.

Any group of characters or text that you want to search over should be text.

Text can be in many languages, with intelligence respective of the configured Engine language.

eg. A description of an object, the name of a product, the content of a review.

A finite double-precision floating point value: 3.14 or 42.

Number fields enable fine grained sorting, filtering, faceting, and boosting.

eg. A price, a review score, the number of visitors, or a size.

Dates must be in ISO 8601 format, eg: "2013-02-27T18:09:19".

eg. A product release or publish date, birth date, an air date.

Geographic coordinates can leverage the location field.

The location field allows filtering by distance from a specified point.

A location is specified using a JSON object containing the longitude and latitude, such as: "37.7894758, -122.3940638".

The separating space after the comma may be omitted: "37.7894758,-122.3940638".

eg. A store where a product is located, location of a venue.

Each field type has its own feature compatibility.

All App Search endpoints accept parameters as a JSON-encoded request body.

This is the recommended method and the one you will see in all of our examples.

However, you can also submit query parameters using form encoding.

For example:

Example - JSON request body

curl -X GET 'https://host-2376rb.api.swiftype.com/api/as/v1/engines/national-parks-demo/documents/list' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer private-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' \
-d '{
  "page": {
    "current": 2,
    "size": 15
  }
}'

... compared with:

Example - Rails-style query parameters

curl -X GET 'https://host-2376rb.api.swiftype.com/api/as/v1/engines/national-parks-demo/documents/list?page[size]=15&page[current]=2' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer private-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'

Both options will return the same response, which is the second page of results with 15 pages per result:

Example - Same response!

{
  "meta": {
    "page": {
      "current": 2,
      "total_pages": 3,
      "total_results": 41,
      "size": 15
    }
  },
  "results": [
    {
       "nps_link": {
         "raw": "https://www.nps.gov/wrst/index.htm"
       },
       "title": {
         "raw": "Wrangell–St. Elias"
       },
       "date_established": {
         "raw": "1980-12-02T06:00:00+00:00"
       },
       "world_heritage_site": {
         "raw": "true"
       },
       "states": {
         "raw": [
           "Alaska"
         ]
       },
       "description": {
         "raw": "An over 8 million acres (32,375 km2) plot of mountainous country—the largest National Park in the system—protects the convergence of the Alaska, Chugach, and Wrangell-Saint Elias Ranges, which include many of the continent's tallest mountains and volcanoes, including the 18,008-foot Mount Saint Elias. More than a quarter of the park is covered with glaciers, including the tidewater Hubbard Glacier, piedmont Malaspina Glacier, and valley Nabesna Glacier."
       },
       "visitors": {
         "raw": 79047
       },
       "id": {
         "raw": "park_wrangell–st.-elias"
       },
       "location": {
         "raw": "61,-142"
       },
       "square_km": {
         "raw": 33682.6
       },
       "acres": {
         "raw": 8323146.48
       },
       "_meta": {
         "score": 0.00437395
       }
    },
    # ... Truncated!
  ]
}

When performing queries using the Search API, you may apply select Lucene Query Syntax functions.

The supported functions are: double quoted strings, + and -, AND, OR, and NOT.

Example - Performing a single query search using Lucene Query Syntax.

curl -X POST 'https://host-2376rb.api.swiftype.com/api/as/v1/engines/national-parks-demo/search' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer search-soaewu2ye6uc45dr8mcd54v8' \
-d '{
  "query": "wyoming AND montana OR california NOT washington"
}'

The API supports gzip.

Your requests to App Search can contain an Accept-Encoding header.

Use the header to notify the API that you are capable of accepting and unpacking responses that are compressed via gzip.

curl -X POST 'https://host-2376rb.api.swiftype.com/api/as/v1/engines/national-parks-demo/search' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'Accept-Encoding: gzip' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer search-soaewu2ye6uc45dr8mcd54v8' \
-d '{
  "query": "everglade"
}'

There are three types of errors that you might run into when creating API requests:

Your choice of Key will depend on the endpoint you choose to access:

If you use the incorrect key or format the key in an incorrect way, then you will receive a 400 error akin to:

{
  "error": "Invalid authentication token."
}

If you happen to make a mistake with your formatting, you will receive a 400 error:

{
  "errors": [
    "There was a decoding error. Please ensure your request is valid."
  ]
}

To address this, ensure that your any JSON objects or URL parameters are formatted in the correct manner.

Each API Reference will show you how to structure your requests.

If you happen to make a mistake, there are a variety of helpful errors that will inform you upon what to fix.

Despite receiving a status code of 200, you will not succeed in making your request.

Look for the Errors section at the end of each endpoint.

Errors might look like this:

{
  "errors": [
    "Missing required parameter: filters[date][from]"
  ]
}

{
  "errors": [
    "curation must include either promoted or hidden"
  ]
}

The App Search API is rate limited to prevent abuse.

The limits are high enough that typical use should rarely be rate limited.

Rate limits are calculated by requests over an hour.

Requests that have been rate limited will respond with HTTP 429 Too Many Requests.

Example - Rate limited JSON resource

curl -i -X GET 'https://host-2376rb.api.swiftype.com/api/as/v1/engines/national-parks-demo/search' \
      -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
      -H 'Authorization: Bearer search-soaewu2ye6uc45dr8mcd54v8' \
      -d '{
        "query": "park",
        "page": {
          "size": 5,
          "current": 2
        }
      }'

Example Response

HTTP/1.1 429
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 32

{ "error": "Rate limit exceeded." }

There are two response headers which provide a guideline towards the rate limit:

X-RateLimit-Limit: xxxx
X-RateLimit-Remaining: xxxx

The header values and their refresh interval vary depending on your plan and which endpoint you are sending requests against.

Additionally, a Retry-After header will be present on 429 responses which indicates how long to wait before submitting your next request.

Due to a variety of network and API influences, these headers are for guidance and are not an exact measure.

If your application is being affected by rate limiting, please use the headers described above as a guide to limit your API usage accordingly.

If the problem persists, contact [email protected] for assistance.