Operations

Spring Data Meilisearch exposes template-style APIs through MeilisearchOperations. That interface combines document operations, search operations, access to instance-level APIs, and access to index-scoped APIs.

Entry Point

MeilisearchConfiguration registers a bean named meilisearchOperations and meilisearchTemplate. Inject that bean when you want direct access to Meilisearch-specific operations instead of the repository abstraction. This is also the primary entry point for store-specific capabilities that are intentionally not surfaced through repositories.

@RestController
class MovieController {

    private final MeilisearchOperations operations;

    MovieController(MeilisearchOperations operations) {
        this.operations = operations;
    }

    @PostMapping("/movies")
    Movie save(@RequestBody Movie movie) {
        return operations.save(movie);
    }
}

Document Operations

DocumentOperations covers id-oriented access to one mapped entity type:

  • save(T) and save(List<T>)

  • get(String, Class<T>)

  • multiGet(…​)

  • exists(String, Class<?>)

  • delete(…​)

  • deleteAll(Class<?>)

These methods are appropriate when you already know the target document ids and want direct document-style access.

Search Operations

SearchOperations covers full-text and search-oriented APIs:

  • search(query, entityType) for single-index search.

  • multiSearch(queries, entityType) for batched non-federated search.

  • multiSearch(queries, federation, entityType) for federated multi-search.

  • facetSearch(query, entityType) for facet search results.

  • similarSearch(query, entityType) for similar-document search.

  • count(entityType) for search-backed counting.

BasicQuery query = BasicQuery.builder()
        .withQ("Wonder Woman")
        .withFilter(new String[] { "genres = Action" })
        .build();

SearchHits<Movie> result = operations.search(query, Movie.class);
List<Movie> movies = result.getSearchHits().stream()
        .map(SearchHit::getContent)
        .toList();

Query Types

Spring Data Meilisearch ships several query value types:

  • BasicQuery for standard search.

  • IndexQuery for multi-index and federated multi-search scenarios.

  • FacetQuery for facet search.

  • SimilarQuery for similar-document search.

IndexQuery adds indexUid and optional federation options. SimilarQuery requires both the source documentId and the configured embedder name.

Search Result Types

Search methods return SearchHits<T>. Each hit is a SearchHit<T> that contains:

  • the mapped entity content,

  • processing time,

  • query text,

  • optional facet statistics and facet distribution,

  • optional federation metadata.

SearchHits#getTotalHits() is accompanied by getTotalHitsRelation():

  • EQUAL_TO means the total hit count reflects the exact matching result set reported by Meilisearch.

  • OFF means exact total-hit metadata is unavailable.

Use the hit list size for the current page content and total-hit metadata only when the relation is EQUAL_TO.

When you need access to raw search metadata such as facets or federation details, prefer MeilisearchOperations directly instead of adapting repository return types.

Notes on Search Semantics

  • Federated multi-search does not support Pageable settings inside the individual queries. Use federation limit and offset instead.

  • Similar-document search requires a compatible embedder already configured in the target index.

  • Repository methods such as findAll(Pageable) are layered on top of these search operations, so search settings such as pagination limits can influence reported page totals.