API performance issues: slow search and transcriptions_exist timeout

[tacman]

API Performance Issues

Testing the v2 API with curl shows significant performance problems:

1. Basic Search is Slow

Even simple searches take ~2 seconds:

$ time curl "https://catalog.archives.gov/api/v2/records/search?q=constitution&limit=1" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" -o /dev/null

200 1.81s  # Takes ~2 seconds for single result

2. transcriptions_exist Parameter Causes Timeout

Using transcriptions_exist=true causes 503/504 Gateway Time-out:

$ time curl "https://catalog.archives.gov/api/v2/records/search?q=constitution&limit=1&transcriptions_exist=true" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}"

503 Gateway Time-out

Questions

1. Is transcriptions_exist the correct parameter for filtering records that have transcriptions?
2. Are there alternative parameters for this filtering?
3. Can search performance be improved?

Workaround

The /transcriptions/search endpoint works correctly and can be used instead to find records with transcriptions.

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Tested with API key provided for development.