Generic block of text or JSON for custom metadata

[tacman]

I find myself wanting to associate some application-specific data with the index, and would like to embed it directly rather than maintaining it separately.

In particular, I want to provide some metadata about the fields that are in the database, and also some instructions as to how fields are rendered. meilisearch has never had a schema like other search engines, and I don't think it should because everyone would have lots of opinions about what should be in it. But having a generic block of text in the index would allow applications to add their own.

Currently I use external YAML files to configure the settings (filterable, searchable, etc.) but I also have data like "translatable" and range limits and restricted values. I'd like to embed those in the index, so I don't have to maintain a separate database of the metadata.

Thanks for your consideration.

[macraig]

Hi @tacman 👋

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, as always. Although we don’t currently support or have on the roadmap the option of storing application-specific metadata directly in the index, we can see how this would simplify certain workflows like yours. I’ll leave the discussion open for others to upvote and share their needs.

[tacman]

Here's an example of some metadata I'd like to have and I can't figure out how to support it in a generic way.

Each index is associated with a Doctrine Entity. I can name the meili index after the Entity class, but sometimes the primary key is different (sku, code, reference, etc. instead of just "id").

I'd love to query the index and say "remind me what class and primary key name are associated with this index". Again, this is specific to my workflow and shouldn't be part of the index, but a generic field would be a perfect place to store it.

I've moved to creating the indexes separate from the searching application, and sharing meta-data is feeling a bit clunky.

Thanks for your consideration.