Server side search API

You can integrate our server side search in your documentation by using our API.

If you are using Business hosting you will need to replace https://readthedocs.org/ with https://readthedocs.com/ in all the URLs used in the following examples. Check Authentication and authorization if you are using private versions.

API v3

GET /api/v3/search/

Return a list of search results for a project or subset of projects. Results are divided into sections with highlights of the matching term.

Query Parameters:

q – Search query (see Search query syntax)
page – Jump to a specific page
page_size – Limits the results per page, default is 50

Response JSON Object:

type (string) – The type of the result, currently page is the only type.
project (string) – The project object
version (string) – The version object
title (string) – The title of the page
domain (string) – Canonical domain of the resulting page
path (string) – Path to the resulting page
highlights (object) – An object containing a list of substrings with matching terms. Note that the text is HTML escaped with the matching terms inside a <span> tag.
blocks (object) –
A list of block objects containing search results from the page. Currently, there is one type of block:
- section: A page section with a linkable anchor (id attribute).

Warning

Except for highlights, any other content is not HTML escaped, you shouldn’t include it in your page without escaping it first.

Example request:

$ curl "https://readthedocs.org/api/v3/search/?q=project:docs%20server%20side%20search"

import requests
URL = 'https://readthedocs.org/api/v3/search/'
params = {
   'q': 'project:docs server side search',
}
response = requests.get(URL, params=params)
print(response.json())

Example response:

{
    "count": 41,
    "next": "https://readthedocs.org/api/v3/search/?page=2&q=project:docs%20server+side+search",
    "previous": null,
    "projects": [
       {
         "slug": "docs",
         "versions": [
           {"slug": "latest"}
         ]
       }
    ],
    "query": "server side search",
    "results": [
        {
            "type": "page",
            "project": {
               "slug": "docs",
               "alias": null
            },
            "version": {
               "slug": "latest"
            },
            "title": "Server Side Search",
            "domain": "https://docs.readthedocs.io",
            "path": "/en/latest/server-side-search.html",
            "highlights": {
                "title": [
                    "<span>Server</span> <span>Side</span> <span>Search</span>"
                ]
            },
            "blocks": [
               {
                  "type": "section",
                  "id": "server-side-search",
                  "title": "Server Side Search",
                  "content": "Read the Docs provides full-text search across all of the pages of all projects, this is powered by Elasticsearch.",
                  "highlights": {
                     "title": [
                        "<span>Server</span> <span>Side</span> <span>Search</span>"
                     ],
                     "content": [
                        "You can <span>search</span> all projects at https:&#x2F;&#x2F;readthedocs.org&#x2F;<span>search</span>&#x2F"
                     ]
                  }
               },
               {
                  "type": "domain",
                  "role": "http:get",
                  "name": "/_/api/v2/search/",
                  "id": "get--_-api-v2-search-",
                  "content": "Retrieve search results for docs",
                  "highlights": {
                     "name": [""],
                     "content": ["Retrieve <span>search</span> results for docs"]
                  }
               }
            ]
        },
    ]
}

Migrating from API v2

Instead of using query arguments to specify the project and version to search, you need to do it from the query itself, this is if you had the following parameters:

project: docs
version: latest
q: test

Now you need to use:

q: project:docs/latest test

The response of the API is very similar to V2, with the following changes:

project is an object, not a string.
version is an object, not a string.
project_alias isn’t present, it is contained in the project object.

When searching on a parent project, results from their subprojects won’t be included automatically, to include results from subprojects use the subprojects paramater.

Authentication and authorization

If you are using private versions, users will only be allowed to search projects they have permissions over. Authentication and authorization is done using the current session, or any of the valid sharing methods.

To be able to use the user’s current session you need to use the API from the domain where your docs are being served (<you-docs-domain>/_/api/v3/search/). This is https://docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/_/api/v3/search/ for the https://docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/ project, for example.

API v2 (deprecated)

Note

Please use our API v3 instead, see Migrating from API v2.

GET /api/v2/search/

Return a list of search results for a project, including results from its Subprojects. Results are divided into sections with highlights of the matching term.