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Collabase has a single unified search that spans all content you have access to. Open it from anywhere in the app — you do not need to navigate away from what you are working on. Search respects permissions. You only see results for content in spaces and projects you have access to.
You can also click the search icon in the top navigation bar.

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What is indexed

Collabase indexes the following content types: Search matches on full words and partial words. Typing “onboard” will match “onboarding” and “onboarded”.
Once search is open, results appear as you type. Click any result with the mouse to open it directly.

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Understanding result types

Each result shows an icon indicating its type, the content title, and the space it belongs to. Results are grouped or labeled so you can quickly see whether a match is a page, a task, a registry object, or another content type.

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Filtering results

After entering a search term, use the filter options to narrow results: Filters can be combined. For example, filtering by Type: Tasks and Space: Engineering shows only tasks in the Engineering space.

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Advanced search with CQL

For precise filtering, switch the filter bar from Basic to Advanced to write a query in the Collabase Query Language (CQL). CQL lets you express conditions that would be hard to build with the visual filters — like “work items assigned to me, due in the past, and not yet done”. As you type, the search bar suggests the available fields, operators, and values, so you rarely need to memorize anything. Advanced search works for work items (tasks) and pages.

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How a query is built

A query is one or more conditions in the form field operator value:
Combine conditions with AND, OR, and NOT, and group them with parentheses:
The field for the assigned person is written author, and the person who created the item is createdBy — the search bar shows the friendly name (“Assignee”) next to each field as you pick it. Text values go in quotes. Numbers and dates do not need quotes.

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Choosing values by name, never by ID

You always filter by the name or label you see in the app — never an internal ID. Type a person’s name for an assignee, the label for a dropdown option, or the object’s name for a registry relation:
If a name matches more than one person, the query matches all of them. If it matches nobody, the search bar tells you so instead of silently returning everything.

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Operators by field type

The operators available depend on the kind of field: Use IN to match any of several values at once:

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Checking for empty or filled fields

Use IS EMPTY and IS NOT EMPTY to find items where a field has no value or any value:

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Filtering on custom fields

Reference a custom field by its key, prefixed with cf.. Custom fields support the operators that match their type — for example a number custom field supports ranges, and a dropdown supports IN:

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Relative dates

For date fields you can use relative offsets and helpers instead of typing a calendar date:

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Ready-made questions (functions)

For work items, a set of built-in functions answer common questions directly:

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Sorting results

End a query with ORDER BY to control the order, adding ASC or DESC:
Advanced search always respects your permissions — it only ever returns work items and pages in Spaces you can access, exactly like Basic search.

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Semantic search (AI-powered)

When an admin has enabled semantic search under Admin → Settings → AI settings → RAG model & pipeline, you can ask questions in plain language and receive answers grounded in your actual content:
  • “What is our onboarding process for new hires?”
  • “Which test cases cover the payment module?”
  • “What did we decide about the API versioning policy?”
Semantic search retrieves the most relevant passages and generates a summary with links to the sources. This is separate from keyword search — both run when semantic search is enabled.

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What it covers

Comments are the addition worth knowing about, because no search in Collabase reached them before — and the reasoning behind a decision usually sits in a comment thread rather than in the page it belongs to.
A comment is only ever as reachable as the page or work item it was written on. If you cannot open the item, its comments never appear in your results. Pages with restricted access are left out of semantic search entirely.
For semantic search setup, see AI Configuration.

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Search and permissions

Search results are filtered automatically to show only content you have permission to see. If you search for something and get no results, it may exist but be in a space or project you are not a member of. Contact your administrator if you believe you are missing access.

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Recent searches and quick navigation

The search panel also shows:
  • Recent searches — your last few search terms, for quick re-use
  • Recent pages — Docs pages you visited recently, listed before you start typing
  • Quick links — keyboard shortcut hints for navigating directly to common sections
These appear when the search panel is open but no text has been entered yet.

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Tips for better results

  • Be specific. “Q3 budget approval” finds more precise results than “budget”.
  • Use the task key. If you know a task’s key (e.g. ENG-42), searching for it returns the exact task immediately.
  • Filter by space. In large installations with many spaces, adding the space filter dramatically reduces noise and speeds up finding what you need.
  • Try different word forms. If “onboard” returns no results, try “onboarding” — the index matches on word boundaries.
  • Semantic search for questions. If keyword search is not finding the answer to a question, try phrasing it as a question in the search bar — if semantic search is enabled, it will answer from your pages, work items and comments.

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Search shortcut reference

Last modified on July 30, 2026