Search

Claspt includes a fast, full-text search engine powered by tantivy (a Rust search library inspired by Apache Lucene). Search works across all folders and indexes your pages automatically as you write.

Opening Search

Press Cmd+K (macOS) or Ctrl+K (Windows/Linux) to open the search panel. Start typing and results appear instantly.

You can also click the search icon in the sidebar header.

How Search Works

When you type a query, Claspt searches across multiple fields in every page. Results are ranked by relevance, with different fields contributing different weights:

Field	Boost	What’s Indexed
Title	3x	The page title from frontmatter
Tags	2x	All tags on the page
Secret labels	2x	The label text of :::secret[Label] blocks
Content	1x	The full markdown body (excluding secret values)

This means a search for “AWS” will prioritize a page titled “AWS Credentials” over a page that merely mentions AWS in a paragraph.

Tip

Take advantage of field boosts by choosing descriptive titles and tags. A page titled “Database Passwords” with tags postgres and production is easy to find from multiple angles.

Search Syntax

Claspt uses straightforward text matching — type words and the engine finds pages containing those terms.

Query	Matches
database	Pages containing “database” in any indexed field
database password	Pages containing both “database” and “password”
AWS production	Pages with both “AWS” and “production”
"exact phrase"	Pages containing the exact phrase in quotes

Search is case-insensitive — aws, AWS, and Aws all return the same results.

Note

Search matches individual terms across all fields. You don’t need to know which field contains the term — Claspt searches everywhere (except encrypted secret values).

What’s NOT Searchable

By design, secret values are never indexed. This is a core security property:

Searchable	Not Searchable
Page titles	Secret values (the encrypted content)
Page content (outside secrets)	Full-body encrypted page content
Tags
Secret labels (e.g., “AWS Access Key”)
Folder names

If you store an API key like sk-abc123 inside a :::secret[Stripe API Key] block, searching for “sk-abc123” returns nothing — but searching for “Stripe API Key” will find the page via the secret label.

Caution

If you accidentally type a secret value in plain text (outside a :::secret block), it will be indexed and searchable. Always use secret blocks for sensitive data.

Navigating Results

Search results appear as a ranked list showing:

• Page title (highlighted matching terms)
• Snippet with matching context from the content
• Folder path so you know where the page lives
• Tags if any matched the query

Click a result to open the page in the editor. Press Escape to close the search panel and return to your current page.

Keyboard Navigation

Key	Action
Cmd+K / Ctrl+K	Open search
Up / Down	Navigate results
Enter	Open selected result
Escape	Close search

Search Across All Folders

Search is vault-wide by default. It doesn’t matter which folder you have selected in the sidebar — search always looks through every page in every folder.

This makes search the fastest way to jump to any page, regardless of your current folder context.

The Search Index

The search index is built with tantivy and stored locally in .securenotes/index/. Key properties:

• Local-only — The index is never synced between devices. Each device builds its own.
• Automatic — Pages are indexed as you create and edit them. No manual step needed for normal use.
• Excluded from Git — The index directory is in .securenotes/, which is gitignored.
• Rebuilding is safe — Rebuilding only reads your existing pages; it never modifies them.

Rebuilding the Search Index

If the index becomes corrupted or out of sync with your pages — for example, after restoring a vault from backup or syncing a large number of changes — you can rebuild it:

1. Open Settings (gear icon or Cmd+, / Ctrl+,).
2. Navigate to Utilities.
3. Click Rebuild Search Index.

Claspt re-scans every page in your vault and rebuilds the tantivy index from scratch. This is usually fast (a few seconds for hundreds of pages).

Note

The search index is automatically excluded from Git and sync. Each device builds and maintains its own index. Rebuilding is safe and non-destructive — it only reads your existing pages.

Tips for Effective Searching

• Use descriptive titles — They get 3x weight, so a good title makes pages easy to find.
• Tag generously — Tags get 2x weight and let you find pages by category, project, or status.
• Name your secrets clearly — Secret labels like “Production DB Password” are searchable and get 2x weight.
• Search before creating — Press Cmd+K to quickly check if you already have a page for something before creating a duplicate.
• Use quotes for exact phrases — Wrap multi-word queries in double quotes to match the exact phrase rather than individual terms.