Configure search
Writerside provides built-in search when using local preview. However, published documentation does not have the search field by default. You need to configure your help website to query an external search service. For this, you can use Algolia that provides free and paid plans.
Create Algolia application and search index
Sign up for an Algolia account.
On the Algolia applications page, click Create Application.
Configure application parameters, select a region for your datacenter, and create the application.
On the Algolia application page, go to and click Create Index.
Provide an informative name and create the index.
On the index page, go to , and click Add an attribute under .
Add two attributes:
productandversion.Click Review and Save Settings and confirm.
Add Algolia parameters to Writerside build configuration
In your documentation project, open buildprofiles.xml.
In the
<variables>tag specify the following:- <algolia-id>
Algolia application ID
- <algolia-index>
Algolia index name
- <algolia-api-key>
Algolia Search-Only API Key
For example:
<buildprofiles xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="https://resources.jetbrains.com/writerside/1.0/build-profiles.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <variables> <algolia-id>TGW4GIW73X</algolia-id> <algolia-index>index_name</algolia-index> <algolia-api-key>29effd68f91893202311a653263f1fb8</algolia-api-key> </variables> </buildprofiles>Commit and push these changes, then build and publish the help instance with these configuration parameters.
Publish your search index to Algolia
To reply to search requests from your help, Algolia needs the search index from the build artifact that you published. Depending on the CI/CD that you use, follow the instructions for TeamCity or GitHub Actions.
If you do not yet have a TeamCity configuration for building your help artifacts, set it up as described in Build on TeamCity Cloud.
Create a separate build configuration for publishing search indexes to your Algolia application.
Configure it to use the following Docker image:
registry.jetbrains.team/p/writerside/builder/algolia-publisher:2.0.32-3This image will run the
help-publication-agentscript.Create a Command line type step with the following command:
env "algolia-key=${'$'}ALGOLIA_KEY" java -jar /opt/builder/help-publication-agent.jar \ update-index \ --application-name ${'$'}ALGOLIA_APP_NAME \ --index-name ${'$'}ALGOLIA_INDEX_NAME \ --product ${'$'}CONFIG_JSON_PRODUCT \ --version ${'$'}CONFIG_JSON_VERSION \ --index-directory algolia-index/ \ 2>&1 | tee algolia-update-index-log.txtIn General Settings, in the Artifact path field, add algolia-update-index-log.txt to write logs.
In Dependencies, add artifacts produced by your help build configuration:
webhelp.zipandalgolia-indexes-*.zip!** => algolia-index. This action unpacks the ZIP archive with indexes to algolia-index.In Parameters, add the following environment variables:
- env.ALGOLIA_APP_NAME
Algolia application ID
- env.ALGOLIA_INDEX_NAME
Name of Algolia index
- env.ALGOLIA_KEY
Algolia Admin API Key.
This is a private key. Set the type of this parameter to
Password, so that users without proper permissions will not see its value.- env.CONFIG_JSON_PRODUCT
Help instance ID from the tree file or the value of the
web-pathattribute specified in writerside.cfg if it is different from the ID- env.CONFIG_JSON_VERSION
Help instance version (usually the same as the branch name) specified in writerside.cfg
Save the build configuration settings and click Deploy. After it finishes successfully, go to the index in your Algolia account and make sure that the index records have really been uploaded.
You will need to upload new search index records every time you publish a new help build.
If you do not yet have a GitHub Actions workflow that builds your help artifacts, set it up as described in Build and publish on GitHub.
In your repository on GitHub, go to , and add a New repository secret called
ALGOLIA_KEYwith Algolia Admin API Key from your Algolia account.Go to your existing GitHub Actions workflow YAML file and add a job that publishes Algolia indexes to your application:
publish-indexes: needs: [build, test, deploy] runs-on: ubuntu-latest container: image: registry.jetbrains.team/p/writerside/builder/algolia-publisher:2.0.32-3 steps: - name: Download artifact uses: actions/download-artifact@v4 with: name: docs - name: Unzip artifact run: | unzip -O UTF-8 -qq '${{ env.ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT }}' -d algolia-indexes env algolia-key='${{env.ALGOLIA_KEY}}' java -jar /opt/builder/help-publication-agent.jar \ update-index \ --application-name '${{env.ALGOLIA_APP_NAME}}' \ --index-name '${{env.ALGOLIA_INDEX_NAME}}' \ --product '${{env.CONFIG_JSON_PRODUCT}}' \ --version '${{env.CONFIG_JSON_VERSION}}' \ --index-directory algolia-indexes/ \ 2>&1 | tee algolia-update-index-log.txtAdd the following environment variables to the workflow:
- env.ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT
The name of the ZIP archive with Algolia indexes from the build artifacts.
- env.ALGOLIA_APP_NAME
Algolia application ID
- env.ALGOLIA_INDEX_NAME
Name of Algolia index
- env.ALGOLIA_KEY
Algolia Admin API Key.
This is a private key. Store it as a secret and reference via
${{ secrets.ALGOLIA_KEY }}.- env.CONFIG_JSON_PRODUCT
Help instance ID from the tree file or the value of the
web-pathattribute specified in writerside.cfg if it is different from the ID- env.CONFIG_JSON_VERSION
Help instance version (usually the same as the branch name) specified in writerside.cfg
For example:
ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT: 'algolia-indexes-HI.zip' ALGOLIA_APP_NAME: 'NLAGB2LZHU' ALGOLIA_INDEX_NAME: 'MY_INDEX' ALGOLIA_KEY: '${{ secrets.ALGOLIA_KEY }}' CONFIG_JSON_PRODUCT: 'HI' CONFIG_JSON_VERSION: '1.0'Run the
publish-indexesjob. After it finishes successfully, go to the index in your Algolia account and make sure that the index records have really been uploaded.
After you upload the index records to Algolia, you can check that search works in your published help.