Search Notes
vault_searchSearch full text of all vault notes with relevance ranking. Combine text queries with metadata filters like folder, tags, type, and properties to pinpoint specific notes.
Instructions
Full-text search across all vault notes, ranked by relevance. Combine a text query with structured filters to narrow results by metadata — the "narrow by metadata, search by text" pattern. Unquoted terms use implicit AND with porter stemming; wrap in double quotes for exact phrases; punctuated terms (vault-cortex, deploy/local) are matched as exact adjacent-word phrases automatically.
Filters — all conditions AND-combine with each other and the text query:
folder: path prefix (e.g. "Projects")
tags: require all listed tags (AND)
type: exact match on frontmatter type (e.g. "person", "session-log")
related: require all listed related links (AND)
properties: arbitrary frontmatter key-value pairs, supports string/number/boolean (e.g. { status: "active" })
Example: vault_search({ query: "kubernetes networking", filters: { tags: ["reference"] } }) Example: vault_search({ query: "meeting notes", filters: { type: "meeting", folder: "Work" } }) Example: vault_search({ query: "deployment", filters: { properties: { status: "active" } } })
When to use: The primary discovery tool for content-based queries, optionally constrained by metadata. Prefer vault_search_by_tag for tag-only queries without text. Prefer vault_search_by_folder for browsing a folder. Prefer vault_search_by_property for metadata-only queries. Prefer vault_recent_notes for time-based browsing.
Errors:
No matches returns { results: [], total: 0 }, not an error
Malformed query syntax is sanitized automatically — the tool never throws a query syntax error
Returns: JSON with results array (path, title, snippet, score, tags, folder, type, created, modified, bytes) and total count. created is omitted when null. bytes is the on-disk file size. With filters.include_leading_callout, each result also carries leading_callout ({ type, title, body }) when present.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| query | Yes | Search query text — unquoted terms use implicit AND with stemming; wrap in double quotes for exact phrases | |
| filters | No | Optional structured filters — all conditions AND-combine with each other and with the text query |