Search API Instant

Search API Instant shows results while your visitors type, from the Search API indexes your site already has. It needs no external service. With Search API's database backend, search-as-you-type works without Solr.

Visitors open the search from a small button floating over every page, from a launcher block in your header, or on a search page whose address can be shared. Results appear after the first few letters, and half-typed words match titles: "muse" finds "Museum of Art". Each result says what a click does (opens a page, opens a PDF, goes to another site) and shows a short excerpt. Results are grouped into strong matches and possibly related ones, and a relevance cutoff keeps unrelated pages out.

Features

• Any Search API backend. The keyword engine works on the database backend, Solr, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch and others. Partial-word title matching works on every one of them.
• One search over several indexes. A site-wide index and a documents index, for example, answer together, merged by rank.
• As many searches as you need. Each search is a configuration entity with its own engine, indexes, limits and launcher. The floating launcher shows the default one; blocks and search pages can show any.
• Search by meaning, optional. The semantic engine searches AI Search indexes and fuses in literal matches from keyword indexes, so names and one-word queries still work. A Drush command helps you choose the cutoff for your embedding model.
• Fallbacks. A search hands over to another while its index fills, or when its server is down or fails: semantic search can fall back to keyword search with no downtime.
• Access-checked and cache-safe. Every result is checked against the visitor's view access, and excerpts against field access. Answers vary by every check, so Drupal's caches never serve one visitor's results to another. A search can be restricted to roles with its own permission.
• Tools for AI agents (optional submodules). A search tool and an administrator's status tool, for the Tool API (AI agents, site agents) and for MCP Server. Agents search as the user they act for, with the same access and rate limits.
• Accessible. Keyboard use (press / to search), an announced result count, and focus that returns where it was. Designed for WCAG 2.2 AA.
• Private. The browser talks only to your site: no CDN scripts, no third-party search service.
• Easy to fit. Searches and settings are exportable configuration and work in recipes. Colours are CSS custom properties. Hooks change results, whole answers and the status. Engines are plugins, and the service that answers every query can be replaced or decorated.
• Ready for AI coding assistants. The module ships an AGENTS.md that tells an assistant how to add it to a site safely: what to check, which engine and indexes to choose, and what to ask before reindexing.

Post-installation

Go to Administration » Configuration » Search and metadata » Search API Instant. Add a search: choose its engine and tick the indexes it searches. Then, on the Settings tab, choose it as the default search and turn on the floating launcher, or place the "Search API Instant launcher" block. Nothing appears until a search exists. The README has a ten-minute quick start for a site with no search yet.

Additional requirements

• Drupal 11.2 or later
• Search API 1.38 or later, with an index

Recommended modules

• Search API Database Search (part of Search API), for a keyword index with no extra server
• AI Search, for the semantic engine
• Search API Attachments, to make the text of PDFs searchable
• Tool or MCP Server, for the agent tools

Similar projects and how they are different

• Search API Autocomplete adds suggestions, or live results, to the text field of a Search API view or page. Search API Instant is a site-wide search with its own launcher, panel and page, result kinds and excerpts, strong and weak groups, a relevance cutoff, several indexes per search, fallbacks, and keyword-and-vector fusion. The two can be used together.
• AI Search is a vector backend with no search interface. Search API Instant can be its interface. AI Search's boost processors add vector results to a keyword search; the semantic engine here leads with the vectors and adds keyword literals.
• AI Search Block writes an answer with an LLM on every query. Search API Instant returns pages and documents, with no chat model involved.
• Search API Typesense and Search API Lunr ship instant search for their own backends. Search API Instant works on any backend and loads nothing from a CDN.
• Search Suggestions had a similar plugin design but has no release for Drupal 10 or 11.

Supporting this module

Search API Instant is developed and maintained by FivePaths, and runs on public-sector sites. Bug reports, engine plugins and translations are welcome in the issue queue.