Algolia Search

Algolia is a search platform that provides a set of features and APIs that make it easy to implement powerful search experiences for users. In fact, out of the box it offers tools and infrastructure to integrate fast and relevant search functionality into our applications. Thanks to the Algolia APIs it is very simple to integrate it into your Qwik application.

Solution

To start using it you need to create a personal Algolia account and retrieve your API keys, which will be used to interact with Algolia.

Index Name: An index is where the data used by Algolia is stored. It's the equivalent of a table in a database but optimized for search and discovery operations.
Application ID: This is your unique application identifier. It's used to identify you when using Algolia's API.
Search-Only API Key: This is the public API key to use in your frontend code. This key is only usable for search queries and sending data to the Insights API.

So once you have this information you can define your environment variables by creating or editing the .env or .env.local file at the root of your project.

.env

VITE_ALGOLIA_INDEX=
VITE_ALGOLIA_APP_ID=
VITE_ALGOLIA_SEARCH_KEY=

Below you can find a working example of a first usable implementation. Then obviously you can customize and create your graphical interface. Many times it makes sense to have a modal where you show the search and the results, such as the search you find in this Qwik documentation. You can check what Algolia returns via the official documentation.

import { $, component$, useSignal, useStylesScoped$ } from '@builder.io/qwik';
 
type AlgoliaResult = {
  hits: {
    type: string;
    anchor?: string;
    content?: string;
    url: string;
  }[];
};
 
export default component$(() => {
  useStylesScoped$(`
    .search {
      font-size: 100%;
      width: calc(100% - 38px);
      border-radius: 0.5rem;
      border: 1px black solid;
      padding: 1rem;
      color: black;
      outline: none;
    }
 
    .search-button {
      border: none;
      padding: 6px 0px;
      cursor: pointer;
      background-color: transparent;
      position: absolute;
      right: 2.4rem;
      padding: 0.85rem 0.5rem 0.4rem 0.5rem;
      outline: none;
    }
 
    .list {
      display: flex;
      flex-direction: column;
      align-items: center;
    }
 
    .list li {
      counter-increment: cardCount;
      display: flex;
      color: white;
      margin-top: 1rem;
      margin-bottom: 1rem;
      max-width: 500px;
    }
 
    .list li::before {
      content: counter(cardCount, decimal-leading-zero);
      background: white;
      color: var(--cardColor);
      font-size: 2em;
      font-weight: 700;
      transform: translateY(calc(-1 * 1rem));
      margin-right: calc(-1 * 1rem);
      z-index: 1;
      display: flex;
      align-items: center;
      padding-inline: 0.5em;
      border: 1px solid black;
    }
 
    .list li .content {
      background-color: var(--cardColor);
      display: grid;
      padding: 0.5em calc(1em + 1.5rem) 0.5em calc(1em + 1rem);
      grid-template-areas:
        "icon title"
        "icon text";
      gap: 0.25em;
      clip-path: polygon(
        0 0,
        calc(100% - 1.5rem) 0,
        100% 50%,
        calc(100% - 1.5rem) 100%,
        calc(100% - 1.5rem) calc(100% + 1rem),
        0 calc(100% + 1rem)
      );
    }
 
    .list li .content .title {
      grid-area: title;
      font-size: 1.25em;
    }
 
    .list li .content .text {
      grid-area: text;
      color: black;
    }
  `);
  const termSignal = useSignal('');
  const hitsSig = useSignal<AlgoliaResult['hits']>([]);
 
  const onSearch = $(async (query: string) => {
    const algoliaURL = new URL(
      `/1/indexes/${import.meta.env.VITE_ALGOLIA_INDEX}/query`,
      `https://${import.meta.env.VITE_ALGOLIA_APP_ID}-dsn.algolia.net`
    );
    const response = await fetch(algoliaURL, {
      method: 'POST',
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'X-Algolia-Application-Id': import.meta.env.VITE_ALGOLIA_APP_ID!,
        'X-Algolia-API-Key': import.meta.env.VITE_ALGOLIA_SEARCH_KEY!,
      },
      body: JSON.stringify({ query }),
    });
    const algoliaResult: AlgoliaResult = await response.json();
    hitsSig.value = algoliaResult.hits;
  });
 
  return (
    <div>
      <div style="margin: 1rem;">
        <div style="position: relative;">
          <input
            class="search"
            placeholder="Algolia search: type here and press enter"
            bind:value={termSignal}
            onKeyDown$={(e) => {
              if (e.key === 'Enter') {
                onSearch(termSignal.value);
              }
            }}
          />
          <button
            type="submit"
            class="search-button"
            onClick$={() => onSearch(termSignal.value)}
          >
            <svg
              xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
              width="32"
              height="32"
              viewBox="0 0 24 24"
            >
              <path
                fill="currentColor"
                d="M15.5 14h-.79l-.28-.27A6.471 6.471 0 0 0 16 9.5A6.5 6.5 0 1 0 9.5 16c1.61 0 3.09-.59 4.23-1.57l.27.28v.79l5 4.99L20.49 19l-4.99-5zm-6 0C7.01 14 5 11.99 5 9.5S7.01 5 9.5 5S14 7.01 14 9.5S11.99 14 9.5 14z"
              />
            </svg>
          </button>
        </div>
      </div>
      <div class="list">
        {hitsSig.value.map(({ anchor, content, url }, key) => (
          <li
            key={key}
            style={`--cardColor:${key % 2 === 0 ? '#19b6f6' : '#ac7ef4'}`}
          >
            <div class="content">
              <div class="title">
                {(anchor || content || url || '').substring(0, 30)}
              </div>
              <a class="text" href={url}>
                Documentation link
              </a>
            </div>
          </li>
        ))}
      </div>
    </div>
  );
});

https://qwik.dev/demo/cookbook/algolia-search/

Contributors

Thanks to all the contributors who have helped make this documentation better!