Search Items

Personalized search. The results are based on the provided searchQuery and also on the user's past interactions (purchases, ratings, etc.) with the items (items more suitable for the user are preferred in the results).

All the string and set item properties are indexed by the search engine.

This endpoint should be used in a search box on your website/app. It can be called multiple times as the user is typing the query in order to get the most viable suggestions based on the current state of the query, or once after submitting the whole query.

The returned items are sorted by relevance (the first item being the most relevant).

Besides the recommended items, also a unique recommId is returned in the response. It can be used to:

Let Recombee know that this search was successful (e.g., user clicked one of the recommended items). See Reported metrics.
Get subsequent search results when the user scrolls down or goes to the next page. See Recommend Next Items.

It is also possible to use GET HTTP method - body parameters then become query parameters.

post/{databaseId}/search/users/{userId}/items/

Request

Base URL
http://Based on the region of your database (see https://docs.recombee.com/regions).
URL
http://Based on the region of your database (see https://docs.recombee.com/regions)./{databaseId}/search/users/{userId}/items/
Auth
none declared

Path parameters

databaseIdstring required

ID of your database.

userIdstring required

ID of the user for whom personalized search will be performed.

Request body

searchQuerystring required

Search query provided by the user. It is used for the full-text search.

countinteger required

Number of items to be returned (N for the top-N results).

scenariostring

Scenario defines a particular search field in your user interface.

You can set various settings to the scenario in the Admin UI. You can also see the performance of each scenario in the Admin UI separately, so you can check how well each field performs.

The AI that optimizes models to get the best results may optimize different scenarios separately, or even use different models in each of the scenarios.

cascadeCreateboolean

If the user does not exist in the database, returns a list of non-personalized search results and creates the user in the database. This allows, for example, rotations in the following recommendations for that user, as the user will be already known to the system.

returnPropertiesboolean

With returnProperties=true, property values of the recommended items are returned along with their IDs in a JSON dictionary. The acquired property values can be used to easily display the recommended items to the user.

Example response:

  {
    "recommId": "ce52ada4-e4d9-4885-943c-407db2dee837",
    "recomms":
      [
        {
          "id": "tv-178",
          "values": {
            "description": "4K TV with 3D feature",
            "categories":   ["Electronics", "Televisions"],
            "price": 342,
            "url": "myshop.com/tv-178"
          }
        },
        {
          "id": "mixer-42",
          "values": {
            "description": "Stainless Steel Mixer",
            "categories":   ["Home & Kitchen"],
            "price": 39,
            "url": "myshop.com/mixer-42"
          }
        }
      ],
    "numberNextRecommsCalls": 0
  }

includedPropertiesstring[]

Allows specifying which properties should be returned when returnProperties=true is set. The properties are given as a comma-separated list.

Example response for includedProperties=description,price:

  {
    "recommId": "a86ee8d5-cd8e-46d1-886c-8b3771d0520b",
    "recomms":
      [
        {
          "id": "tv-178",
          "values": {
            "description": "4K TV with 3D feature",
            "price": 342
          }
        },
        {
          "id": "mixer-42",
          "values": {
            "description": "Stainless Steel Mixer",
            "price": 39
          }
        }
      ],
    "numberNextRecommsCalls": 0
  }

filterstring

Boolean-returning ReQL expression, which allows you to filter recommended items based on the values of their attributes.

Filters can also be assigned to a scenario in the Admin UI.

boosterstring

Number-returning ReQL expression, which allows you to boost the recommendation rate of some items based on the values of their attributes.

Boosters can also be assigned to a scenario in the Admin UI.

reqlExpressionsobject

A dictionary of ReQL expressions that will be executed for each recommended item. This can be used to compute additional properties of the recommended items that are not stored in the database.

The keys are the names of the expressions, and the values are the actual ReQL expressions.

Example request:

{
  "reqlExpressions": {
    "isInUsersCity": "context_user[\"city\"] in 'cities'",
    "distanceToUser": "earth_distance('location', context_user[\"location\"])"
  }
}

Example response:

{
  "recommId": "ce52ada4-e4d9-4885-943c-407db2dee837",
  "recomms": 
    [
      {
        "id": "restaurant-178",
        "reqlEvaluations": {
          "isInUsersCity": true,
          "distanceToUser": 5200.2
        }
      },
      {
        "id": "bar-42",
        "reqlEvaluations": {
          "isInUsersCity": false,
          "distanceToUser": 2516.0
        }
      }
    ],
   "numberNextRecommsCalls": 0
}

expertSettingsobject

Dictionary of custom options.

returnAbGroupboolean

If there is a custom AB-testing running, return the name of the group to which the request belongs.

Response

Successful operation.

recommIdstring required

Id of the personalized search request

numberNextRecommsCallsinteger

How many times Recommend Next Items have been called for this recommId

abGroupstring

Name of AB-testing group to which the request belongs if there is a custom AB-testing running.

Changes

No recorded changes to this operation across all 3 revisions of this API.