postgres-full-text-search

name	postgres-full-text-search
description	Use when implementing search with Postgres: tsvector, GIN indexes, search RPC, or replacing client-side filter of large lists. Not for external Algolia/Typesense setup unless migrating away from DB search.

Postgres full-text search

Generated column + GIN index

alter table public.posts add column search_vector tsvector
  generated always as (
    setweight(to_tsvector('english', coalesce(title, '')), 'A') ||
    setweight(to_tsvector('english', coalesce(body, '')), 'B')
  ) stored;

create index posts_search_idx on public.posts using gin (search_vector);

Use simple config for mixed language products; consider pg_trgm for typo-tolerant name search.

Search RPC

create or replace function public.search_posts(
  p_query text,
  p_limit int default 20
) returns setof public.posts
language sql stable as $$
  select *
  from public.posts
  where search_vector @@ websearch_to_tsquery('english', p_query)
    and deleted_at is null
  order by ts_rank(search_vector, websearch_to_tsquery('english', p_query)) desc
  limit p_limit;
$$;

Grant execute to authenticated; RLS still applies on underlying table.

Client

const { data } = await supabase.rpc("search_posts", { p_query: q });

Debounce input 300ms; minimum query length 2.

Trigram fallback (names)

create extension if not exists pg_trgm;
create index projects_name_trgm_idx on public.projects using gin (name gin_trgm_ops);
-- where name ilike '%' || p_query || '%' — use sparingly at scale

Avoid

• ilike '%term%' on large tables without index.
• Loading full table to client for search.
• Ignoring RLS on search results.

Checklist

• GIN index on search column
• RPC or filtered query with rank
• Soft-deleted rows excluded (soft-delete-and-archiving)