Current status

The public search pages can optionally use Vertex AI Search to improve relevance ranking for sort=relevance. When Vertex is disabled or unconfigured, the app falls back to the built-in search index automatically.

Implemented in this repo

  • Backend endpoint: GET /search/vertex (Discovery Engine search results + snippets).
  • Web integration: Search and Advanced search use Vertex ranking when enabled.

Enable in production

Set environment variables on academiax-api:

VERTEX_SEARCH_ENABLED=true
VERTEX_SEARCH_SERVING_CONFIG=projects/.../locations/.../collections/.../(engines|dataStores)/.../servingConfigs/...
VERTEX_SEARCH_TIMEOUT_SEC=8

Website indexing requires an Enterprise tier engine (SEARCH_TIER_ENTERPRISE).

Related docs