Page last updated 03 October 2025
Search for entries using a query tree structure, along with order and paging specifiers, allows a search to be performed against indexed documents held in ElasticSearch. The query API allows any required sub-query structure to be defined and a comprehensive selection of Operators enable individual field level evaluation.
search(query: Query): Promise<PagedSearchList<Entry>>
search(query: Query, linkDepth: number): Promise<PagedSearchList<Entry>>Query
This example demonstrates a simple search with default ordering and paging options.
import { Query, Op } from "contensis-delivery-api";
const query = new Query(
Op.contains('title', 'Batman'),
Op.greaterThan("runtime", 200)
);
const films = await client.entries.search(query);
// films.pageIndex
// films.pageSize
// films.totalCount
// films are available
if (films.items.length > 0) {
for (const film of films.items) {
console.log(film.entryTitle);
console.log(film.tagline);
}
}Sub-queries
A sub-query is a query within another query that is used as a condition to further restrict the results. Effectively they are defined by an explicit nesting of logical operators.
This example demonstrates a simple search with a sub-query.
const query = new Query(
Op.contains('title', 'Batman'),
Op.or(
Op.greaterThan('releaseDate', 1960),
Op.contains('tagline', 'gotham')
)
);Because of the way that search data is stored and query responses are cached, it is most efficient for queries on sys.contentTypeId, sys.versionStatus, sys.dataFormat and sys.language to be at the top level of the query, rather than in subqueries. For example, the following is very efficient:
const query = new Query(
Op.equalTo('sys.contentTypeId', 'content'),
Op.equalTo('sys.language', 'en-GB'),
Op.equalTo('sys.versionStatus', 'published')
);However, this second example, which results in the same query, will take longer to process and not be cached as effectively:
const query = new Query(
Op.or(
Op.equalTo('sys.contentTypeId', 'content')
),
Op.and(
Op.equalTo('sys.language', 'en-GB'),
Op.equalTo('sys.versionStatus', 'published')
)
);Paging
Paging allows the number of results to be restricted to a defined count so that the results are easier to handle and ensures a response is returned quickly. The page number can also be specified to define which set of results is to be returned.
If you intend to page through the complete result set without any duplicates you should always specify an order by field. The page size is limited to a maximum of 10,000, however this is not recommended.
query.pageSize = 50;
query.pageIndex = 1;Ordering
Results can be ordered by one or more fields in an ascending or descending direction. Order clauses are prioritised in the order that they are added. By default, if no order clauses are specified then the entry results are ordered by:
- A relevancy 'score' for each entry for the search query (from ElasticSearch) in a descending direction
- The EntryTitle in an ascending direction.
This is the best solution for searches using a search term of some kind as it will promote the most relevant results to the top of the results. However, this can occasionally mean that an odd entry might appear on more than one page as the relevancy score is dynamically calculated on each paged request. As such, if you intend to page through the complete result set without any duplicates you should always specify an order by field.
import { OrderBy } from "contensis-delivery-api";const { OrderBy } = require("contensis-delivery-api");Ascending order
query.orderBy = OrderBy.asc('releaseDate');Descending order
query.orderBy = OrderBy.desc('releaseDate');Multiple clauses
Multiple order clauses.
query.orderBy = OrderBy.asc('title').desc('releaseDate');Weighting
All query operators can have a weight applied.
const query = new Query(
Op.equalTo('first', 7).weight(10)
);Specifying fields
System fields
System fields such as id, contentTypeId, projectId, versionNo etc. are under the sys object and can be accessed using a dot notation, e.g. sys.id, sys.contentTypeId, sys.projectId, sys.version.versionNo.
The entryTitle field is a dynamic value, determined by the EntryTitleField value in the content type, the same applies to entryDescription and entryThumbnail fields, and will contain the value from the content type field that has been set to represent these common entry fields.
Data fields
Fields defined in the content type for the entry can be accessed by their API id.
All fields
All fields can be searched by specifying an asterisk (*) in the field id. Note there are some limitations, and the FreeText operator is not supported for all fields.
const query = new Query(
 Op.equalTo('*', "Interstellar")
);Array fields
Searching on array fields require square brackets [] to be specified in the field id before any field ids within the object. Note that this syntax is not required for single object fields. All operators support searching across array fields.
Example array field search
const query = new Query(
 Op.equalTo('movieQuote[].source', "Bruce Willis")
);Limiting fields
If you have large entries and only require a subset of fields it is worth limiting the fields returned in the results. This will reduce the size of the payload from the API which in turn will improve performance. You can include fields by specifiying the field API ID or you can exclude fields by prefixing the field API ID with a -. Field limiting also applies to linked entries when specifying a linkDepth.
query.fields = ['entryTitle', 'description'];Resolving field content
Entry fields containing links to other content can have the field content automatically resolved in the search results by adding linkDepth parameter to our search set to the number of levels that all child fields containing linked content will be resolved to
Keeping check on payload sizes when using linkDepth of more than 0, we can also set fieldLinkDepths in the query, specifying which entry link field(s) require link depth resolving and to what depth.
query.fieldLinkDepths = { 'linkField': 2, 'otherField': 1 };Aggregate field content
Provide insights into data distribution and prompt for further search refinements. Aggregations allow you to group data by specific fields and return a count of entries matching each unique value from all pages in the result-set.
Add an aggregations object in the shape of QueryAggregations to the query, and define one or more aggregations that contain the field to count, whether we will consider unpopulated fields, and limit the amount of aggregated values to return.
Aggregations that reference array fields do not require square brackets [] to be specified in the field
The top aggregated values for each aggregation will be returned in the search response, grouped under each defined aggregation, along with the paged list of search results.
Example
query.aggregations = {
tags: {
field: 'entryTags',
missing: 'Untagged',
size: 5
}
};Location searches
Search for locations within a radius of a specified location.
Supported distance units
| Unit | Search value |
|---|---|
| Mile | mi or miles |
| Yard | yd or yards |
| Feet | ft or feet |
| Inch | in or inch |
| Kilometer | km or kilometers |
| Meter | m or meters |
| Centimeter | cm or centimeters |
| Millimeter | mm or millimeters |
| Nautical mile | NM, nmi or nauticalmiles |
Example
const query = new Query(
 Op.distanceWithin("location", 52.377, -2.749, "10mi"))
);When searching for a location field, you can also order the results by distance.
Ordering by distance
When searching by location, to return the search results according to the distance of the location field in each entry from the distance specified in the distanceWithin search, add the location field to the orderBy clause.
const query = new Query(
Op.distanceWithin("location", 52.377, -2.749, "10mi")
);
query.orderBy = OrderBy.asc('location');Complete example
import { Query, Op, OrderBy } from "contensis-delivery-api";
const query = new Query(
Op.contains('title', 'Batman'),
Op.or(
Op.greaterThan('releaseDate', 1960),
Op.contains('tagline', 'gotham')
)
);
query.orderBy = OrderBy.asc('title').desc('releaseDate');
query.pageSize = 50;
query.pageIndex = 1;
query.fields = ['entryTitle', 'tagline', 'releaseDate'];
const films = await client.entries.search(query);
// films.pageIndex
// films.pageSize
// films.totalCount
// films are available
if (films.items.length > 0) {
for (const film of films.items) {
console.log(film.entryTitle);
console.log(film.tagline);
}
}