Guides / Building Search UI

Installing InstantSearch.js

InstantSearch.js can be used either with a direct link in your webpage or with a packaging system.

Directly in your page

This method uses the built version of InstantSearch.js from the jsDeliver CDN:

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<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/algoliasearch@4.5.1/dist/algoliasearch-lite.umd.js" integrity="sha256-EXPXz4W6pQgfYY3yTpnDa3OH8/EPn16ciVsPQ/ypsjk=" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/instantsearch.js@4.8.3/dist/instantsearch.production.min.js" integrity="sha256-LAGhRRdtVoD6RLo2qDQsU2mp+XVSciKRC8XPOBWmofM=" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

The jsDeliver CDN is highly available with over 110 locations in the world.

You will then have access to the instantsearch function in the global scope (window).

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const searchClient = algoliasearch('YourApplicationID', 'YourSearchOnlyAPIKey');

const search = instantsearch({
  indexName: 'demo_ecommerce',
  searchClient,
});

search.addWidgets([
  instantsearch.widgets.searchBox({
    container: '#searchbox',
  }),

  instantsearch.widgets.hits({
    container: '#hits',
  })
]);

search.start();

With a build system

If you have a JavaScript build system, you can install InstantSearch.js from npm:

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npm install algoliasearch instantsearch.js

Then in your module, you can load the main package:

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import algoliasearch from 'algoliasearch/lite';
import instantsearch from 'instantsearch.js';
import { searchBox, hits } from 'instantsearch.js/es/widgets';

const searchClient = algoliasearch('YourApplicationID', 'YourSearchOnlyAPIKey');

const search = instantsearch({
  indexName: 'demo_ecommerce',
  searchClient,
});

search.addWidgets([
  searchBox({
    container: "#searchbox"
  }),

  hits({
    container: "#hits"
  })
]);

search.start();

Load the style

Afterwards, you need to manually load the companion CSS file into your page:

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<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/instantsearch.css@7.3.1/themes/reset-min.css" integrity="sha256-t2ATOGCtAIZNnzER679jwcFcKYfLlw01gli6F6oszk8=" crossorigin="anonymous">

Or you can load into your page the Satellite theme for the widgets to be styled.

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<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/instantsearch.css@7.4.5/themes/satellite-min.css" integrity="sha256-TehzF/2QvNKhGQrrNpoOb2Ck4iGZ1J/DI4pkd2oUsBc=" crossorigin="anonymous">

You can find more information about that in the styling guide.

Create InstantSearch App

You can use create-instantsearch-app. Similarly to other interactive command line applications, you can run it either with npm or with yarn:

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npx create-instantsearch-app 'getting-started'
# or
yarn create instantsearch-app 'getting-started'

Browser support

We support the last two versions of major browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari).

To support Internet Explorer 11, we recommend using polyfill.io. Add this script to your page to conditionally load polyfills:

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<script src="https://polyfill.io/v3/polyfill.min.js?features=default%2CArray.prototype.find%2CArray.prototype.includes%2CPromise%2CObject.assign%2CObject.entries"></script>

Note that the code samples used in this documentation can use JavaScript syntax not natively supported by older browsers like Internet Explorer 11. If your site supports older browsers, make sure to use a tool like Babel to transform your code into code that works in the browsers you target.

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