DocumentationAPI Reference

Search

Guide exposes three different search APIs: the Article and Post search APIs enable you to search for articles and posts respectively, the Unified search API allows you to search across articles, posts and external content in a single query.

You can call the search APIs from a JavaScript client in a domain other than your Help Center. The API implements Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS). CORS lets a JavaScript client access resources in other domains.

JSON format

Search are represented as JSON objects with the following properties:

Name Type Read-only Mandatory Description
results array false true An array with the base articles or community posts
  • GET /api/v2/guide/search?filter[locales]={filter[locales]}

Use the Unified Search endpoint to search for knowledge base articles, community posts, and external records.

Returns a default number of 10 results per page.

The only mandatory parameter is filter[locales]. Other parameters can be added to narrow down the search result set.

If you specify an invalid locale or a locale that's not enabled for any of your account's help centers, no search results are returned. You can check for valid locales with the API. See List all enabled locales and default locale.

If the query parameter is used, results are sorted by relevance according to the rules described in About Help Center End User Search. If the query parameter is not used, results are sorted using an internal ordering.

Pagination

This API only supports cursor-based pagination. See Using cursor based pagination in the Help Center API docs. Currently, this API does not support backwards pagination.

Returns a maximum of 50 records per page.

Allowed for

  • Authenticated users
  • Agents
  • Admins

Parameters

Name Type In Required Description
filter[brand_ids] string Query false Limit the search to articles or posts within these brands. If no brand is specified, results are returned across all brands. If you want to scope the result of your search with multiple brands, separate each value with a comma
filter[category_ids] string Query false Limit the search to articles with these category ids. See Filtering by Category
filter[content_types] string Query false Limit the search to one of these content types: ARTICLE, POST. At present, it is not possible to specify EXTERNAL_RECORD. Instead, use the filter[external_source_id] parameter above
filter[external_source_ids] string Query false Use this parameter to scope the result of your search to a specific external source or external sources. If no external source is given, results are returned across all sources
filter[locales] string Query true Limit the search to these locales. See Filtering by Locale
filter[section_ids] string Query false Limit the search to articles with these section ids. See Filtering by Section
filter[topic_ids] string Query false Limit the search to posts within these topics. See Filtering by Topic
page[after] string Query false A string representing the cursor to the next page.
page[size] integer Query false A numeric value that indicates the maximum number of items that can be included in a response. The value of this parameter has an upper limit of 50. The default value is 10.
query string Query false The search text to be matched or a search string

Code Samples

Curl 
curl --request GET https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/guide/search?filter[brand_ids]=73%2C67&filter[category_ids]=42%2C43&filter[content_types]=ARTICLE%2CPOST&filter[external_source_ids]=01EC05A5T1J4ZSDJX4Q8JGFRHP&filter[locales]=en-us%2Cen-gb&filter[section_ids]=42%2C43&filter[topic_ids]=42%2C43&page[after]=&page[size]=&query=carrot \--header "Content-Type: application/json" \-u username:password
a query with password authentication 
# Use commas to separate multiple search terms.# Authorization can be achieved using `email:password` curl "https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/api/v2/guide/search?query=Printing&filter[locales]=en-us,en-gb" -g \  -v -u {email_address}:{password}
external source filtering with basic authentication 
# You can omit the query term if you just need to apply a filter# The `Authorization` header can be used to pass a Base 64 encoded Authorization tokencurl "https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/api/v2/guide/search?filter[locales]=en-us&filter[external_source_ids]=01EC05A5T1J4ZSDJX4Q8JGFRHP" -g\  -H "Authorization: Basic {token}"
pagination with basic authentication 
# You can use page[size] and page[after] to paginate your result setcurl "https://{subdomain}.zendesk.comapi/v2/guide/search?filter[locales]=en-us&page[size]=2&page[after]=WzEuMCwxNjld" -g\  -H "Authorization: Basic {token}"
Go 
import (	"fmt"	"io"	"net/http")
func main() {	url := "https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/guide/search?filter[brand_ids]=73%2C67&filter[category_ids]=42%2C43&filter[content_types]=ARTICLE%2CPOST&filter[external_source_ids]=01EC05A5T1J4ZSDJX4Q8JGFRHP&filter[locales]=en-us%2Cen-gb&filter[section_ids]=42%2C43&filter[topic_ids]=42%2C43&page[after]=&page[size]=&query=carrot"	method := "GET"	req, err := http.NewRequest(method, url, nil)
	if err != nil {		fmt.Println(err)		return	}	req.Header.Add("Content-Type", "application/json")	req.Header.Add("Authorization", "Basic <auth-value>") // Base64 encoded "username:password"
	client := &http.Client {}	res, err := client.Do(req)	if err != nil {		fmt.Println(err)		return	}	defer res.Body.Close()
	body, err := io.ReadAll(res.Body)	if err != nil {		fmt.Println(err)		return	}	fmt.Println(string(body))}
Java 
import com.squareup.okhttp.*;OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();HttpUrl.Builder urlBuilder = HttpUrl.parse("https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/guide/search")		.newBuilder()		.addQueryParameter("filter[brand_ids]", "73,67")		.addQueryParameter("filter[category_ids]", "42,43")		.addQueryParameter("filter[content_types]", "ARTICLE,POST")		.addQueryParameter("filter[external_source_ids]", "01EC05A5T1J4ZSDJX4Q8JGFRHP")		.addQueryParameter("filter[locales]", "en-us,en-gb")		.addQueryParameter("filter[section_ids]", "42,43")		.addQueryParameter("filter[topic_ids]", "42,43")		.addQueryParameter("page[after]", "")		.addQueryParameter("page[size]", "")		.addQueryParameter("query", "carrot");
Request request = new Request.Builder()		.url(urlBuilder.build())		.method("GET", null)		.addHeader("Content-Type", "application/json")		.addHeader("Authorization", Credentials.basic("your-email", "your-password"))		.build();Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
javascript to search external content from a Help Center front-end as a logged in user 
const externalSourceId = "" // some source idconst response = await fetch(  `https://${window.location.hostname}/api/v2/guide/search?filter[locales]=en-us&filter[external_source_ids]=${externalSourceId}`,  {      credentials: 'include',      headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' }  });const data = await response.json(); data.results.forEach(something); // do something with the results
Nodejs 
var axios = require('axios');
var config = {  method: 'GET',  url: 'https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/guide/search',  headers: {	'Content-Type': 'application/json',	'Authorization': 'Basic <auth-value>', // Base64 encoded "username:password"  },  params: {    'filter[brand_ids]': '73%2C67',    'filter[category_ids]': '42%2C43',    'filter[content_types]': 'ARTICLE%2CPOST',    'filter[external_source_ids]': '01EC05A5T1J4ZSDJX4Q8JGFRHP',    'filter[locales]': 'en-us%2Cen-gb',    'filter[section_ids]': '42%2C43',    'filter[topic_ids]': '42%2C43',    'page[after]': '',    'page[size]': '',    'query': 'carrot',  },};
axios(config).then(function (response) {  console.log(JSON.stringify(response.data));}).catch(function (error) {  console.log(error);});
Python 
import requests
url = "https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/guide/search?filter[brand_ids]=73%2C67&filter[category_ids]=42%2C43&filter[content_types]=ARTICLE%2CPOST&filter[external_source_ids]=01EC05A5T1J4ZSDJX4Q8JGFRHP&filter[locales]=en-us%2Cen-gb&filter[section_ids]=42%2C43&filter[topic_ids]=42%2C43&page[after]=&page[size]=&query=carrot"headers = {	"Content-Type": "application/json",}
response = requests.request(	"GET",	url,	auth=('<username>', '<password>'),	headers=headers)
print(response.text)
Ruby 
require "net/http"uri = URI("https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/guide/search")uri.query = URI.encode_www_form("filter[brand_ids]": "73,67", "filter[category_ids]": "42,43", "filter[content_types]": "ARTICLE,POST", "filter[external_source_ids]": "01EC05A5T1J4ZSDJX4Q8JGFRHP", "filter[locales]": "en-us,en-gb", "filter[section_ids]": "42,43", "filter[topic_ids]": "42,43", "page[after]": "", "page[size]": "", "query": "carrot")request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri, "Content-Type": "application/json")request.basic_auth "username", "password"response = Net::HTTP.start uri.hostname, uri.port, use_ssl: true do |http|	http.request(request)end

Example response(s)

200 OK 
// Status 200 OK
{  "meta": {    "after_cursor": "WzEuMCwxNjld",    "before_cursor": "WzEuMCwxNjhd",    "has_more": true  },  "results": [    {      "title": "How to make fish stew",      "type": "ARTICLE",      "updated_at": "2021-10-11T15:02:22Z",      "url": "http://example.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/38393937-How-to-make-fish-stew"    },    {      "title": "Latest updates on fish stew",      "type": "EXTERNAL_RECORD",      "updated_at": "2021-11-12T15:02:22Z",      "url": "http://example.com/blog/fish-stew-latest"    }  ]}

Search Articles

  • GET /api/v2/help_center/articles/search

Returns a default number of 25 articles per page, up to a maximum of 1000 results. See Pagination. The per_page parameter, if provided, must be an integer between 1 and 100.

The page parameter, if provided, must be an integer greater than 0.

The results are sorted by relevance by default. You can also sort the results by created_at or updated_at.

The article objects returned by the search endpoint contain two additional properties:

Name Type Read-only Mandatory Comment
result_type string yes no For articles, always the string "article"
snippet string yes no The portion of an article that is relevant to the search query, with matching words or phrases delimited by <em></em> tags. Example: a query for "carrot potato" might return the snippet "...don't confuse <em>carrots</em> with <em>potatoes</em>..."

You must specify at least one of the following parameters in your request:

  • query
  • category
  • section
  • label_names

Pagination

  • Offset pagination only

See Pagination.

Returns a maximum of 100 articles per page.

Allowed for

  • Anonymous users

Filtering by Date

You can filter the search results by the creation or update date with the following parameters:

  • created_before
  • created_after
  • created_at
  • updated_before
  • updated_after
  • updated_at

GET /api/v2/help_center/articles/search.json?query={search_string}&updated_after=2014-01-01&updated_before=2014-02-01

When filtering by updated_*, the results might not always match the updated_at timestamps for the documents returned. The reason is that not all updates are propagated to the search index. Only updates that are meaningful for search, such as content changes, are re-indexed. As a result, it's possible for an article to have an updated_at timestamp of "2019-10-31" but be returned in a search with the filter updated_before=2019-08-01 if no meaningful content changes have been made to the article.

Filtering by Labels

If you want to search for articles with specific labels, use the label_names parameter and pass a comma-separated list of label names to filter the results:

GET /api/v2/help_center/articles/search.json?label_names=photos,camera

An article must have at least one of the labels to match. Also, matching is not case-sensitive. For example, 'camera' matches both 'Camera' and 'camera'.

This feature is only available on Professional and Enterprise.

Filtering by Locale

By default, searches are carried out in the default language specified in the Help Center settings. Use the locale parameter to search for articles in another language.

GET /api/v2/help_center/articles/search.json?query={search_string}&locale={locale}

If you specify an invalid locale or a locale that's not enabled for Help Center, the default locale for the account is used for the search. You can check for valid locales with the API. See List all enabled locales and default locale.

If you use locale=*, search is carried out across all valid locales and returns all article translations in all languages, that match the search criteria.

Filtering by Category

If you want to scope the result of your search within a given category, use the category parameter.

GET /api/v2/help_center/articles/search.json?query={search_string}&category={category_id}

If you want to scope the result of your search with multiple categories, use the category parameter as above and separate each value with a comma.

GET /api/v2/help_center/articles/search.json?query={search_string}&category={category_id},{another_category_id}

Filtering by Section

If you want to scope the result of your search within a given section, use the section parameter.

GET /api/v2/help_center/articles/search.json?query={search_string}&section={section id}

If you want to scope the result of your search with multiple sections, use section parameter as above and separate each value with a comma.

GET /api/v2/help_center/articles/search.json?query={search_string}&section={section_id},{another_section_id}

Filtering by Brand

Use the multibrand parameter to search across all brands, or brand_id to scope the result of your search to a specific brand.

GET /api/v2/help_center/articles/search.json?query={search_string}&brand_id={brand_id}

GET /api/v2/help_center/articles/search.json?query={search_string}&multibrand=true

If you use multibrand=true in your request and no brand_id, search will return results from all brands that match the query criteria. If you use brand_id in your request, the search results will be scoped to the specified brand, regardless of the use of the multibrand parameter.

Parameters

Name Type In Required Description
brand_id integer Query false Search for articles in the specified brand.
category integer Query false Limit the search to this category id. See Filtering by Category
created_after string Query false Limit the search to articles created after a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD).
created_at string Query false Limit the search to articles created on a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD).
created_before string Query false Limit the search to articles created before a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD).
label_names string Query false A comma-separated list of label names. See Filtering by Labels
locale string Query false Search for articles in the specified locale. See Filtering by Locale
multibrand boolean Query false Enable search across all brands if true. Defaults to false if omitted.
query string Query false The search text to be matched or a search string. Examples: "carrot potato", "'carrot potato'".
section integer Query false Limit the search to this section id. See Filtering by Section
sort_by string Query false One of created_at or updated_at. Defaults to sorting by relevance
sort_order string Query false One of asc or desc. Defaults to desc
updated_after string Query false Limit the search to articles updated after a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD).
updated_at string Query false Limit the search to articles updated on a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD).
updated_before string Query false Limit the search to articles updated before a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD).

Code Samples

curl 
# If using the command line, use commas to separate multiple search terms. Example:# search.json?query=print,orderscurl "https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/articles/search.json?query=Printing&updated_after=2014-01-01&updated_before=2014-02-01" \  -v -u {email_address}:{password}
Go 
import (	"fmt"	"io"	"net/http")
func main() {	url := "https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/articles/search?brand_id=&category=&created_after=&created_at=&created_before=&label_names=&locale=&multibrand=&query=&section=&sort_by=&sort_order=&updated_after=&updated_at=&updated_before="	method := "GET"	req, err := http.NewRequest(method, url, nil)
	if err != nil {		fmt.Println(err)		return	}	req.Header.Add("Content-Type", "application/json")	req.Header.Add("Authorization", "Basic <auth-value>") // Base64 encoded "username:password"
	client := &http.Client {}	res, err := client.Do(req)	if err != nil {		fmt.Println(err)		return	}	defer res.Body.Close()
	body, err := io.ReadAll(res.Body)	if err != nil {		fmt.Println(err)		return	}	fmt.Println(string(body))}
Java 
import com.squareup.okhttp.*;OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();HttpUrl.Builder urlBuilder = HttpUrl.parse("https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/articles/search")		.newBuilder()		.addQueryParameter("brand_id", "")		.addQueryParameter("category", "")		.addQueryParameter("created_after", "")		.addQueryParameter("created_at", "")		.addQueryParameter("created_before", "")		.addQueryParameter("label_names", "")		.addQueryParameter("locale", "")		.addQueryParameter("multibrand", "")		.addQueryParameter("query", "")		.addQueryParameter("section", "")		.addQueryParameter("sort_by", "")		.addQueryParameter("sort_order", "")		.addQueryParameter("updated_after", "")		.addQueryParameter("updated_at", "")		.addQueryParameter("updated_before", "");
Request request = new Request.Builder()		.url(urlBuilder.build())		.method("GET", null)		.addHeader("Content-Type", "application/json")		.addHeader("Authorization", Credentials.basic("your-email", "your-password"))		.build();Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
Nodejs 
var axios = require('axios');
var config = {  method: 'GET',  url: 'https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/articles/search',  headers: {	'Content-Type': 'application/json',	'Authorization': 'Basic <auth-value>', // Base64 encoded "username:password"  },  params: {    'brand_id': '',    'category': '',    'created_after': '',    'created_at': '',    'created_before': '',    'label_names': '',    'locale': '',    'multibrand': '',    'query': '',    'section': '',    'sort_by': '',    'sort_order': '',    'updated_after': '',    'updated_at': '',    'updated_before': '',  },};
axios(config).then(function (response) {  console.log(JSON.stringify(response.data));}).catch(function (error) {  console.log(error);});
Python 
import requests
url = "https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/articles/search?brand_id=&category=&created_after=&created_at=&created_before=&label_names=&locale=&multibrand=&query=&section=&sort_by=&sort_order=&updated_after=&updated_at=&updated_before="headers = {	"Content-Type": "application/json",}
response = requests.request(	"GET",	url,	auth=('<username>', '<password>'),	headers=headers)
print(response.text)
Ruby 
require "net/http"uri = URI("https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/articles/search")uri.query = URI.encode_www_form("brand_id": "", "category": "", "created_after": "", "created_at": "", "created_before": "", "label_names": "", "locale": "", "multibrand": "", "query": "", "section": "", "sort_by": "", "sort_order": "", "updated_after": "", "updated_at": "", "updated_before": "")request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri, "Content-Type": "application/json")request.basic_auth "username", "password"response = Net::HTTP.start uri.hostname, uri.port, use_ssl: true do |http|	http.request(request)end

Example response(s)

200 OK 
// Status 200 OK
{  "results": [    {      "author_id": 888887,      "draft": false,      "id": 35467,      "locale": "en",      "permission_group_id": 123,      "title": "Printing orders",      "user_segment_id": 12    }  ]}

Search Posts

  • GET /api/v2/help_center/community_posts/search?query={query}

Returns a maximum of 25 posts per page, up to a maximum of 1000 results. See Pagination.

The results are sorted by relevance by default. You can also sort the results by created_at or updated_at.

Pagination

  • Offset pagination only

See Pagination.

Returns a maximum of 100 articles per page.

Allowed for

  • End users

Filtering by Date

You can filter the search results by the creation or update date with the following parameters:

  • created_before
  • created_after
  • created_at
  • updated_before
  • updated_after
  • updated_at

GET /api/v2/community/posts/search.json?query={search_string}&updated_after=2014-01-01&updated_before=2014-02-01

Filtering by Topic

If you want to scope the result of your search within a given topic, use the topic parameter.

GET /api/v2/community/posts/search.json?query={search_string}&topic={topic id}

Parameters

Name Type In Required Description
created_after string Query false Search posts created after a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD)
created_at string Query false Search posts created on a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD)
created_before string Query false the search to posts created before a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD)
query string Query true Search text to be matched or a search string. Examples: "carrot potato", "''carrot potato''"'
sort_by string Query false Sort by created_at or updated_at. Defaults to sorting by relevance
sort_order string Query false Sort in ascending or descending order. Default is descending order.
topic integer Query false Search by topic ID. See Filtering by Topic
updated_after string Query false Search posts updated after a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD)
updated_at string Query false Search posts updated on a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD)
updated_before string Query false Search posts updated before a given date (format YYYY-MM-DD)

Code Samples

curl 
# If using the command line, use commas to separate multiple search terms. Example:# search.json?query=print,orderscurl "https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/community_posts/search.json?query={search_string}" \  -v -u {email_address}:{password}
Go 
import (	"fmt"	"io"	"net/http")
func main() {	url := "https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/community_posts/search?created_after=&created_at=&created_before=&query=help+center&sort_by=&sort_order=&topic=&updated_after=&updated_at=&updated_before="	method := "GET"	req, err := http.NewRequest(method, url, nil)
	if err != nil {		fmt.Println(err)		return	}	req.Header.Add("Content-Type", "application/json")	req.Header.Add("Authorization", "Basic <auth-value>") // Base64 encoded "username:password"
	client := &http.Client {}	res, err := client.Do(req)	if err != nil {		fmt.Println(err)		return	}	defer res.Body.Close()
	body, err := io.ReadAll(res.Body)	if err != nil {		fmt.Println(err)		return	}	fmt.Println(string(body))}
Java 
import com.squareup.okhttp.*;OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();HttpUrl.Builder urlBuilder = HttpUrl.parse("https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/community_posts/search")		.newBuilder()		.addQueryParameter("created_after", "")		.addQueryParameter("created_at", "")		.addQueryParameter("created_before", "")		.addQueryParameter("query", "help center")		.addQueryParameter("sort_by", "")		.addQueryParameter("sort_order", "")		.addQueryParameter("topic", "")		.addQueryParameter("updated_after", "")		.addQueryParameter("updated_at", "")		.addQueryParameter("updated_before", "");
Request request = new Request.Builder()		.url(urlBuilder.build())		.method("GET", null)		.addHeader("Content-Type", "application/json")		.addHeader("Authorization", Credentials.basic("your-email", "your-password"))		.build();Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
Nodejs 
var axios = require('axios');
var config = {  method: 'GET',  url: 'https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/community_posts/search',  headers: {	'Content-Type': 'application/json',	'Authorization': 'Basic <auth-value>', // Base64 encoded "username:password"  },  params: {    'created_after': '',    'created_at': '',    'created_before': '',    'query': 'help+center',    'sort_by': '',    'sort_order': '',    'topic': '',    'updated_after': '',    'updated_at': '',    'updated_before': '',  },};
axios(config).then(function (response) {  console.log(JSON.stringify(response.data));}).catch(function (error) {  console.log(error);});
Python 
import requests
url = "https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/community_posts/search?created_after=&created_at=&created_before=&query=help+center&sort_by=&sort_order=&topic=&updated_after=&updated_at=&updated_before="headers = {	"Content-Type": "application/json",}
response = requests.request(	"GET",	url,	auth=('<username>', '<password>'),	headers=headers)
print(response.text)
Ruby 
require "net/http"uri = URI("https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/community_posts/search")uri.query = URI.encode_www_form("created_after": "", "created_at": "", "created_before": "", "query": "help center", "sort_by": "", "sort_order": "", "topic": "", "updated_after": "", "updated_at": "", "updated_before": "")request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri, "Content-Type": "application/json")request.basic_auth "username", "password"response = Net::HTTP.start uri.hostname, uri.port, use_ssl: true do |http|	http.request(request)end

Example response(s)

200 OK 
// Status 200 OK
{  "results": [    {      "author_id": 4333787,      "id": 4212256,      "title": "How do I make a return?"    }  ]}