Framework integration / Rails / Getting started

Set up Algolia for Ruby on Rails

The algoliasearch-rails gem lets you integrate the Algolia Search API to your favorite object-relational mapping (ORM). It’s based on the algoliasearch-client-ruby gem.

Compatibility

This gem supports:

  • Ruby versions 2.5 and up
  • Ruby on Rails versions 6 and 7.

This gem is compatible with:

Install

Install the gem directly:

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gem install algoliasearch-rails

Or add it to your Gemfile:

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gem "algoliasearch-rails"

And run:

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bundle install

Configuration

To configure the gem, create a new file config/initializers/algoliasearch.rb.

Add your Algolia credentials: the application ID and the API key. You can find both in the Algolia dashboard.

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AlgoliaSearch.configuration = {
  application_id: 'YourApplicationID',
  api_key: 'YourWriteAPIKey'
}

API client with custom settings

If you want to customize settings such as timeout for the API client, you can make the Algolia gem use your instance of an API client. You can do this by setting the AlgoliaSearch.client option to your initialized client:

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opts = { } # your options
AlgoliaSearch.client = Algolia::SearchClient.create('YourApplicationID', 'YourWriteAPIKey', opts)

The algoliasearch block

To index your model into Algolia, include the AlgoliaSearch module and the algoliasearch block. This block sets up your index and options. If you want to use the default options, declare an empty block.

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class Contact < ActiveRecord::Base
  include AlgoliaSearch

  algoliasearch do
    # Use all default configuration
  end
end

Example configuration

To see a full configuration example, see the repository for the HN Search app.

Method name and aliases

All methods injected by the AlgoliaSearch module have the prefix algolia_ and are aliased to short names if they aren’t already defined by Rails:

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# Both calls do the same
Contact.algolia_reindex!
Contact.reindex!

# Both calls to the same
Contact.algolia_search("jon doe")
Contact.search("jon doe")
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