Search

JournalPHP implements full-text search via Laravel Scout.

How Search Works

Search uses Laravel Scout. The driver is set via SCOUT_DRIVER in .env:

Driver	When to use
null	Value in .env.example — search disabled until configured
database	MySQL FULLTEXT with no external services (recommended for self-hosted)
algolia / meilisearch	External search engine

In config/scout.php, the default fallback is algolia if the variable is unset.

Scout indexes only two models: Post and User. Community and tag search runs separately, outside Scout.

What Gets Indexed

Model	Indexed fields
Post	title, blocks
User	name

Tag Search

Tags are not part of the Scout index. Tag search and navigation use dedicated routes:

• Tag page: /tag/{slug}
• Popular tags: /tags/popular

Tag management — Admin Panel → Tags (/admin-panel/tags).

Re-Indexing

To rebuild the search index:

# Re-index posts
docker compose exec app php artisan scout:import "App\Models\Post"

# Re-index users
docker compose exec app php artisan scout:import "App\Models\User"

# Clear index
docker compose exec app php artisan scout:flush "App\Models\Post"

Search Page

Discovery and search: /discovery

URL	Content
/discovery	Search posts, users, and communities
/discovery/blogs	Top blogs and authors
/discovery/topics	Community directory
/tag/{name}	Posts by tag

Tags as Navigation

Tags are an additional content discovery mechanism. Each tag has its own page (/tag/{slug}) and is included in sitemap.xml for SEO.