[RFC] Improved search in eigen

Status: Closed

Type: New Dependencies

Name: react-instantsearch-native github url npmjs url

Name: algoliasearch github url npmjs url

Description

In FX team we want to integrate algolia in order to provide a richer search experience within the mobile app - backed by the Algolia platform (You can find more info in the tech plan here).

Approaches

There are two approaches we can take in order to do that in eigen currently.

1. Use algoliasearch api client directly from the eigen app together with their component library react-instantsearch-native (docs) that provides some react HOC’s and components to help us build the UI (they don’t have support for hooks YET)

   This would require us to install the following 3 dependencies in eigen:

   • react-instantsearch-native
   • @types/react-instantsearch-native
   • algoliasearch

   A small POC of this can be found in this draft PR

2. Don’t query algolia directly but instead expose a GraphQL Interface from metaphysics which will proxy requests to Algolia. No dependency installation needed in eigen.

Additional context

The mobile feature will likely be an extension of what’s the app today, not a replacement. You’ll still be able to use the existing global search but can click in to a deeper search experience where you can filter by entity and apply filters.

slack discussion

[francoischalifour]

We released React InstantSearch Hooks as experimental today, let us know if you give it a try!

[anandaroop]

+1 to using Algolia clients to query directly, if possible, in order to see the greatest speed benefits from their platform

Would using Algolia to “outsource” our searches affect our recommendations? I mean are we using the data the user searched for in our recommendation engine somewhere and would removing that data affect our artwork recommendations?

Good point! Getting some extra context about how exactly our recommendations work and if they take search queries in mind and will get back at you soon.

In case you’re still looking for this info @gkartalis, the various ingredients in our homegrown recommender system are laid out here in Cinder (our Apache Spark system for off-line big data processing).

Search history is not factored in currently, so I see no risk there. And, in fact this may potentially unlock some recommendation options that are powered by Algolia