---
title: "Search"
slug: workspace/search
url: https://projectri.com/docs/workspace/search
section: workspace
audience: workspace
app_route: "/[slug]/[user]/search"
mobile: "/search"
updated: 2026-09-08
source: Projectri documentation
---

# Search

Ranked search across tasks, projects, documents, notes, comments, tickets, clients and knowledge-base articles, with operators, type tabs and paging.

![Search](https://projectri.com/docs-shots/workspace-search.png)

## What it is

The search page is the long form of the box in the header. The box gives you six
quick answers as you type; this page ranks the whole workspace, understands
operators, tells you what kind of thing each hit is, and pages.

Eight kinds of thing are indexed: **tasks, projects, documents, notes, comments,
tickets, clients** and **knowledge-base articles**.

## How to get there

Type in the header search box and press `Enter`, or open `/search` directly.
The query lives in the address — `?q=…` — so a search can be shared, bookmarked
and reached again with the back button.

The page itself needs no permission beyond being signed in. What it will show
you does: each type is gated by its own key — `task.view` for tasks and
comments, `project.view` for projects, `document.view` for documents and notes,
`support.view` for tickets, `client.view` for clients, `kb.view` for articles.
A type you cannot see is named under the results as hidden by your permissions
rather than silently dropped, because "no tickets matched" and "you cannot see
tickets" are different answers.

## How to use it

### Run a search

1. Type and press `Enter`. Results arrive ranked, with the matched words
   highlighted in the title and in a line of context.
2. The line under the box says how many results and how long it took.
3. Each row shows the type on the right. Clicking one opens the thing itself —
   a task opens its panel, a comment opens the task it hangs off.

### Narrow by type

1. The tabs above the results — **All** and one per type present — filter what
   is on screen. Each carries its own count.
2. The tabs are a view of the answer already fetched, not a new search. To
   narrow the search itself, use `type:` in the box.

### Use operators

Operators can be combined, and a query made only of operators is legitimate.

| Operator | What it does |
|---|---|
| `type:task` | Restrict to one kind. `issue`, `doc`, `kb`, `customer` and the plurals all work. |
| `in:project` or `project:acme` | One project, by key or name. |
| `assignee:me`, `assignee:sam` | One person. |
| `client:acme` | One client. |
| `is:open`, `is:done`, `is:mine`, `is:unassigned`, `is:overdue`, `is:archived` | State. |
| `from:me` | Your own. |
| `created:>2026-01-01`, `updated:<2026-06-01` | Date bounds. |
| `"exact phrase"` | Adjacent words. |
| `-word` | Must not appear. |

An operator the search does not recognise is echoed back rather than swallowed,
so a typo in one shows up as a typo rather than as an empty result.

### Page through

1. **Load more** at the bottom fetches the next twenty-five and appends them.
2. It only appears on **All**: the type tabs hide rows, they do not shorten the
   result set.

## What it affects

- **Nothing.** Search reads; it writes no state anywhere. Opening a hit does
  whatever opening that thing normally does.
- **Permissions are part of the query, not a filter afterwards.** A row you may
  not read is never fetched, so counts and paging are honest and a title cannot
  leak.
- **Ranking prefers your own work.** Relevance is weighted by recency, by
  whether the project is one of yours, and by type, so a project outranks a
  comment that merely mentions it.

## On mobile

The phone's Search screen asks the same ranked search and shows the same type
tabs and the same destinations. It adds people above the ranked list — colleagues
are deliberately not in the index, so they come from the directory instead.

## Limits and gotchas

- A query of one character is not run. Either type two, or use an operator.
- The index is refreshed by a pass that runs every minute, so something created
  seconds ago may not be findable yet. It is not lost.
- **People are not results here.** Use the header box or
  [Team](/docs/workspace/team) to find a colleague.
- When nothing matches literally, a looser search runs and the summary says so —
  "*n* close matches, nothing matched exactly". When results were matched by
  meaning rather than by word, it says that too. Both lines mean the rows are
  not what you literally typed.
- The context line under a hit is plain text taken from the start of the body,
  not the passage that matched.

## Related

- [How search works](/docs/features/search) — indexing, ranking and what is not indexed.
- [Knowledge base](/docs/workspace/kb) — articles, which are one of the indexed types.
- [My Tasks](/docs/workspace/my-tasks) — where a task hit lands.
- [Documents](/docs/workspace/documents) — where a document hit lands.

## Related

- [Search](https://projectri.com/docs/features/search.md): One box over eight kinds of thing, how the ranking works, the operators you can type, and the one thing search can never find.
- [Knowledge base](https://projectri.com/docs/workspace/kb.md): The workspace's written answers, searched by meaning rather than keywords, with a reader and a helpful/not-helpful vote.
- [My Tasks](https://projectri.com/docs/workspace/my-tasks.md): Every task assigned to you — or the whole workspace — as a Kanban board, a table or a timeline, with counts, a due-date strip, saved views and board setup.
- [Documents](https://projectri.com/docs/workspace/documents.md): Written documents and uploaded files in one library, with type filters, drag-and-drop upload, templates and a trash tab.