Getting Started

Welcome to React InstantSearch

React InstantSearch is a React library that lets you create an instant search results experience using Algolia’s search API.

To get started, you will build a search UI for an e-commerce website. You will learn how to:

• Bootstrap a React InstantSearch app with our command line utility create-instantsearch-app
• Display and format the search bar and results
• Use pre-built UI components (widgets) to filter results

Your goal is to create a fully working React InstantSearch app as fast as possible. We provide you with the data, installation instructions, and a step-by-step process with all necessary code. We will not explain how everything is wired together yet, but you’ll be able to dig into the library immediately after.

Live Demo

Here’s what you’ll build in a couple of minutes:

If you haven’t done so yet, take a look at our interactive getting started tutorial. It literally takes 2 minutes to complete.

⚡️ Let’s go!

Build a simple UI

Bootstrap your application

To easily bootstrap a working React InstantSearch app in seconds, you’ll use the create-instantsearch-app command line tool.

Open a terminal and paste these lines:

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npx create-instantsearch-app ais-ecommerce-demo-app \
  --template "React InstantSearch" \
  --app-id "B1G2GM9NG0" \
  --api-key "aadef574be1f9252bb48d4ea09b5cfe5" \
  --index-name demo_ecommerce \
  --attributes-to-display name

This generates a folder on your machine that looks like this:

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ais-ecommerce-demo-app/
├── node_modules
├── public
├── src
├── eslintrc.js
├── .gitignore
├── .prettierrc
├── package.json
├── README.md
└── yarn.lock

Your application uses predefined credentials (application ID, API key and index name) that we provide as part of this getting started.

create-instantsearch-app can be used to generate any flavor of InstantSearch, and it has many options. Read more about it on the GitHub repository.

React InstantSearch can be installed via an npm package in your already existing React application. This is covered in detail in the installation guide.

Add the Search UI Code

Open the file src/App.js and replace the content of the App component with:

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class App extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div className="ais-InstantSearch">
        <h1>React InstantSearch e-commerce demo</h1>
        <InstantSearch indexName="demo_ecommerce" searchClient={searchClient}>
          <div className="right-panel">
            <SearchBox />
            <Hits hitComponent={Hit} />
          </div>
        </InstantSearch>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

Then open the file src/App.css and replace its content with:

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body { font-family: sans-serif; padding: 1em; }
.ais-SearchBox { margin: 1em 0; }

Run your project

Now that we have bootstrapped the project and added the search UI code, let’s do a first run! Inside your terminal, type:

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cd ais-ecommerce-demo-app
npm start

Then open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:3000.

You’ll see this:

💅 You nailed it! You just bootstrapped an instant-search UI in no time. Now, let’s dig into the code.

Dig in and understand the code

When you read the code of the file src/App.js, you will see three InstantSearch widgets:

• InstantSearch is the root React InstantSearch component. All other widgets need to be wrapped by this one for them to function.
• SearchBox displays a nice looking Search Box for users to type queries in it.
• Hits displays the results from Algolia, based on the query.

We have a lot more widgets, you can discover them all in the widget showcase.

Additionally, you can see that widgets have a pre-defined style. Read more about this in the styling guide.

Add more widgets

To make your search UI more efficient and practical for your users, let’s add some more widgets:

• pagination
• a way to filter the store by brands
• a way to clear active filters

Open the file src/App.js and update the content of the App component with:

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// Update the import
import {
  InstantSearch,
  Hits,
  SearchBox,
  Pagination,
  Highlight,
  ClearRefinements,
  RefinementList,
  Configure,
} from 'react-instantsearch-dom';

// Update the App component
class App extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div className="ais-InstantSearch">
        <h1>React InstantSearch e-commerce demo</h1>
        <InstantSearch indexName="demo_ecommerce" searchClient={searchClient}>
          <div className="left-panel">
            <ClearRefinements />
            <h2>Brands</h2>
            <RefinementList attribute="brand" />
            <Configure hitsPerPage={8} />
          </div>
          <div className="right-panel">
            <SearchBox />
            <Hits hitComponent={Hit} />
            <Pagination />
          </div>
        </InstantSearch>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

Here are the new widgets you added:

• ClearRefinements displays a button to clear the current refinements
• RefinementList displays a list of brands to filter your search
• Configure allows you to pass search parameters, here to reduce the number of hits
• Pagination implements paging logic

Create a two column layout, open the file src/App.css and update its content to:

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body { font-family: sans-serif; padding: 1em; }
.ais-SearchBox { margin: 1em 0; }
.ais-Pagination { margin-top: 1em }
.left-panel { float: left; width: 250px; }
.right-panel { margin-left: 260px; }

Go to your browser, and on refresh, you’ll see this:

🍬 Sweet! You just added a bunch of widgets to your first instant-search page.

Customize hits and add a final touch

Our search UI is almost complete as a simple demo. The last step is to customize the rendering of the hits to display more information than just the name of the products.

Add more information

Open the file src/App.js and replace the content of the Hit component with:

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function Hit(props) {
  return (
    <div>
      <img src={props.hit.image} align="left" alt={props.hit.name} />
      <div className="hit-name">
        <Highlight attribute="name" hit={props.hit} />
      </div>
      <div className="hit-description">
        <Highlight attribute="description" hit={props.hit} />
      </div>
      <div className="hit-price">${props.hit.price}</div>
    </div>
  );
}

Add formatting

For the final touch, open the file src/App.css and replace its content with:

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body { font-family: sans-serif; padding: 1em; }
.ais-SearchBox { margin: 1em 0; }
.ais-Pagination { margin-top: 1em }
.left-panel { float: left; width: 250px; }
.right-panel { margin-left: 260px; }
.ais-InstantSearch { max-width: 960px; overflow: hidden; margin: 0 auto }
.ais-Hits-item { margin-bottom: 1em; width: calc(50% - 1rem) }
.ais-Hits-item img { margin-right: 1em }
.hit-name { margin-bottom: .5em }
.hit-description { color: #888; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: .5em }

Now open your browser, you’ll see this:

🚀 That’s it!

You just learned how to customize the rendering of the Hits widget. Learn more about customization in our customization guide.

Learn how we configured our dataset

You can download the dataset here.

Have look at how to import it with Algolia here

Then you can quickly configure the index using the following code:

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// composer autoload
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

// if you are not using composer
// require_once 'path/to/algoliasearch.php';

$client = \Algolia\AlgoliaSearch\SearchClient::create(
  'YourApplicationID',
  'YourAdminAPIKey'
);

$index = $client->initIndex('your_index_name');

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require 'rubygems'
require 'algoliasearch'

Algolia.init(application_id: 'YourApplicationID',
             api_key:        'YourAdminAPIKey')
index = Algolia::Index.new('your_index_name')

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// const algoliasearch = require('algoliasearch');
// const algoliasearch = require('algoliasearch/reactnative');
// const algoliasearch = require('algoliasearch/lite');
// import algoliasearch from 'algoliasearch';
//
// or just use algoliasearch if you are using a <script> tag
// if you are using AMD module loader, algoliasearch will not be defined in window,
// but in the AMD modules of the page

const client = algoliasearch('YourApplicationID', 'YourAdminAPIKey');
const index = client.initIndex('your_index_name');

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from algoliasearch.search_client import SearchClient

client = SearchClient.create('YourApplicationID', 'YourAdminAPIKey')
index = client.init_index('your_index_name')

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let client = Client(appID: "YourApplicationID", apiKey: "YourAdminAPIKey")
let index = client.index(withName: "your_index_name")

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Client client = new Client("YourApplicationID", "YourAdminAPIKey");
Index index = client.getIndex("your_index_name");

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SearchClient client = new SearchClient("YourApplicationID", "YourAdminAPIKey");
SearchIndex index = client.InitIndex("your_index_name");

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SearchClient client = 
DefaultSearchClient.create("YourApplicationID", "YourAdminAPIKey");

SearchIndex index = client.InitIndex("your_index_name");

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package main

import "github.com/algolia/algoliasearch-client-go/algolia/search"

func main() {
  client := search.NewClient("YourApplicationID", "YourAdminAPIKey")
  index := client.InitIndex("your_index_name")
}

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// No initIndex
val client = new AlgoliaClient("YourApplicationID", "YourAdminAPIKey")

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val client = ClientSearch(
    applicationID = ApplicationID("latency"),
    apiKey = APIKey("YourAdminAPIKey")
)
val indexName = IndexName("your_index_name")

client.initIndex(indexName)

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$index->setSettings(array(
  "searchableAttributes" => [
    "brand",
    "name",
    "categories",
    "unordered(description)"
  ],
  "customRanking" => [
    "desc(popularity)"
  ],
  "attributesForFaceting" => [
    "searchable(brand)",
    "type",
    "categories",
    "price"
  ]
));

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index.set_settings(
  searchableAttributes: [
    'brand',
    'name',
    'categories',
    'unordered(description)'
  ],
  customRanking: [
    'desc(popularity)'
  ],
  attributesForFaceting: [
    'searchable(brand)',
    'type',
    'categories',
    'price'
  ]
)

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index.setSettings({
   searchableAttributes: [
    'brand',
    'name',
    'categories',
    'unordered(description)'
  ],
  customRanking: [
    'desc(popularity)'
  ],
  attributesForFaceting: [
    'searchable(brand)',
    'type',
    'categories',
    'price'
  ]
});

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index.set_settings({
    'searchableAttributes': [
        'brand',
        'name',
        'categories',
        'unordered(description)'
    ],
    'customRanking': [
        'desc(popularity)'
    ],
    'attributesForFaceting': [
        'searchable(brand)',
        'type',
        'categories',
        'price'
    ]
})

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index.setSettings([
  "searchableAttributes": [
  'brand',
  'name',
  'categories',
  'unordered(description)'
  ],
  "customRanking": [
    'desc(popularity)'
  ],
  "attributesForFaceting": [
    'searchable(brand)',
    'type',
    'categories',
    'price'
  ]
])

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index.setSettings(
  new JSONObject().put(
    "searchableAttributes",
    new JSONArray()
      .put("brand")
      .put("name")
      .put("categories")
      .put("unordered(description)")
  ).put(
    "customRanking", new JSONArray()
      .put("desc(popularity)")
  ).put(
    "attributesForFaceting", new JSONArray()
      .put("searchable(brand)")
      .put("type")
      .put("categories")
      .put("price")
  )
);

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IndexSettings settings = new IndexSettings
{
    SearchableAttributes = new List<string> {"brand", "name", "categories", "description"},
    CustomRanking = new List<string> {"desc(popularity)"},
    UnretrievableAttributes = new List<string> {"searchable(brand)", "type", "categories, "price"}
};

index.SetSettings(settings);

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index.setSettings(
  new IndexSettings().setSearchableAttributes(Arrays.asList(
    "brand",
    "name",
    "categories",
    "unordered(description)"
  )).setCustomRanking(Arrays.asList(
    "desc(popularity)"
  )).setAttributesForFaceting(Arrays.asList(
    "searchable(brand)",
    "type",
    "categories",
    "price"
  ))
);

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res, err := index.SetSettings(search.Settings{
    SearchableAttributes: opt.SearchableAttributes(
      "brand",
      "name",
      "categories",
      "unordered(description)"
    },
    CustomRanking: opt.CustomRanking(
      "desc(popularity)"
    },
    AttributesForFaceting: opt.AttributesForFaceting(
      "searchable(brand)",
      "type",
      "categories",
      "price"
    },
})

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  val result: Future[Task] = client.execute {
    changeSettings of "myIndex" `with` IndexSettings(
      searchableAttributes = Some(Seq(
        SearchableAttributes.attribute("brand"),
        SearchableAttributes.attribute("name"),
        SearchableAttributes.attribute("categories"),
        SearchableAttributes.unordered("description")
      )),
      customRanking = Some(Seq(
        CustomRanking.desc("popularity")
      )),
      attributesForFaceting = Some(Seq(
        "searchable(brand)",
        "type",
        "categories",
        "price"
      ))
    )
  }