Parliament.uk Search.Api

Search API for everything public under the parliament.uk domain.

Currently powering beta.parliament.uk/search.

This project is compliant with the OpenSearch 1.1 specification.

The search API can be configured to use different search result providers.

Search API endpoint

Query String Parameters

The search API currently supports one combination of parameters (matching parameters described in the OpenSearch 1.1 specification).

Query string parameter	Required	Validation	Default	OpenSearch parameter
q	True	string		searchTerms
start	False	int, min(1)	1	startIndex
count	False	int, min(1), max(100)	10	count

n.b. Corresponding OpenSearch URL template query string "?q={searchTerms}&start={startPage?}&count={count?}".

e.g. Example query "/search?q=who+is+my+mp&start=1&count=10".

Headers

The search API supports 4 feed serialisation formats for its response feeds through the Accept header.

Header	Value
Accept	"application/atom+xml" or "application/rss+xml" or "text/xml" or "application/xml"

Description API endpoint

The /description endpoint returns a valid OpenSearch description document.

OpenSearch description documents can be used to add a search engine to your browser or file explorer.

Search Engine providers

OpenSearch parameters have corresponding search engine providers parameters.

Google CSE

OpenSearch parameter	Query string parameter	Required	Validation	Default
searchTerms	q	True	string
startIndex	start	False	int, min(0)	0
count	num	False	int, min(1), max(10)	10

n.b. Google CSE will be completely shut down by April 1st 2018.

Bing search API

OpenSearch parameter	Query string parameter	Required	Validation	Default
searchTerms	q	True	string
startIndex	offset	False	int, min(0)	0
count	count	False	int, min(1), max(50)	10

Credits

Authors/contributors to this project in alphabetical order:

• Matthieu Bosquet
• Raphael Leung
• Robert Brook
• Samu Lang
• Wojciech Starwiarski