Search and filters

The search box finds testimonials by what they say and by what they are. It is at the top of the Inbox, under Testimonials in the site's sidebar, and it takes words and filters together in one line:

rating:5 has:video tag:onboarding,pricing -is:pinned "saved us"

The / key puts the cursor in the box. Press Enter to search.

How the box reads what you type#

Terms are joined with "and": a testimonial has to match every one. There is no "or" and there are no parentheses. The comma covers "any of".

Words are matched by their stem in the language of each testimonial, so "ship" also finds "shipping" in an English one. The box reads the first 500 characters.

Operators#

A value with a space goes in quotes: form:"Order follow-up". Tag, collection, form and company names are matched without regard to capitals.

An operator that is not in this table is searched as plain text. A value an operator does not take, such as rating:9, has:shoes or a tag that does not exist, is refused with a sentence that names it. The page comes back with that sentence, the box as you typed it and nothing listed.

From the box to the filter rail#

When you search, the operators the filter rail has a control for are lifted out of the box: the matching filter is ticked, a chip appears above the list, and only what the rail cannot say stays in the box. So rating:5 has:video onboarding leaves "onboarding" in the box, with 5 stars and Has video ticked on the left. The box and the rail are always one state.

A minus in front keeps an operator in the box, with one exception: a minus on one of the lifted has: and is: operators becomes the other side of that filter. -has:video turns into the chip "No video" and -is:used into "Used nowhere".

An operator also stays in the box when its filter already has a choice (lifting it would turn "and" into "or"), and when its value is one the Inbox will refuse, so the message can name it.

Sorting#

The sort button in the toolbar lists the orders in words. The API takes the value in sort.

API and MCP#

The same text works in the q input of these tools, and inside the filters of the JSON API bulk route.

The inputs are in the API reference and the MCP reference. A filter can be said three ways, and they add up:

1. The filter inputs of the rail, such as status, tag_id and has_video. They are listed beside each group on the Inbox page.
2. q, the search box with its operators.
3. conditions with match: rows of field, operator and value, the same shape a smart collection and an auto-tag rule store.

{
  "match": "all",
  "conditions": [
    { "field": "status", "operator": "is", "value": "approved" },
    { "field": "rating", "operator": "is_at_least", "value": 4 },
    { "field": "tag", "operator": "has_any_of", "value": ["onboarding", "pricing"] }
  ]
}

match is all (the default) or any, and it joins the rows of conditions only. The filter inputs and q always apply on top. A list takes up to 50 rows, a row takes up to 100 values, and a phrase up to 200 characters. In a query string, send conditions as JSON text.

Every operator has an opposite. The named ones are is_not, is_none_of, has_none_of, is_in_none_of, do_not_contain, does_not_contain, does_not_include, is_no, is_empty and is_absent. For the rest, put not_ in front, as in not_between.

A field, an operator or a value the filter does not know is refused with 422 and a sentence that names it. Nothing is guessed or dropped. meta.summary says the whole filter in words, for example "Testimonials where status is approved and rating is at least 4." meta.query says how q was read: text (the words), filters (each operator as a condition) and unknown (the operators it did not know and searched as text).

Ask your assistant:

• "Find the five-star video testimonials nobody has used yet."
• "What do people say about support, and how many of those are approved?"
• "List everything from Acme received this year, best rated first."

Good to know#

• The trash is never searched here. The Trash page has its own search box.
• email: and the email condition need content.write, because filtering by an address would tell a read-only member whether it is in the site. Without it the server responds with 403.
• Dates are read as 2026-03-31. A range that runs backwards is refused.
• is:fresh and is:old go by the date received, with two years as the line.
• Every date is a day on the site's own clock. received:30d starts at the beginning of the day 30 days ago.
• A saved view keeps the search text with its operators, so a search you repeat can be one click.