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Last updated: 30 Apr 2025

search-api-v2: Search autocomplete

We use Vertex AI Search's built-in autocomplete functionality to provide our users with helpful suggestions to complete their query as they type in search fields.

Search API v2 provides an API to return suggestions, which the search_with_autocomplete component in frontend rendering apps accesses through a proxy endpoint on Finder Frontend. Other internal clients and the GOV.UK app may access it directly or through an API gateway.

Update denylist

We use a denylist to avoid the autocomplete returning suggestions that are not suitable or helpful.

Search Admin provides a UI to manage entries on the denylist.

If there are problems updating the denylist we can consider disabling the autocomplete feature temporarily to provide time to resolve the problem.

Disable search autocomplete

If poor suggestions are shown to users that cannot be mitigated through the denylist, or there is a problem updating the denylist, or autocomplete needs to be turned off for another reason, the ENABLE_AUTOCOMPLETE feature flag environment variable for Search API v2 can be turned off.

This will cause an empty array of suggestions to be returned to all clients (web or otherwise).

  1. Open the appropriate values-<environment>.yaml file from GOV.UK Helm Charts, for example values-production.yaml
  2. Set ENABLE_AUTOCOMPLETE in extraEnv to false
  3. Open a PR to apply the change
  4. Once merged, a new deployment will be created for Search API v2 and no suggestions will be returned