help.search

Pages of the Manual ranked for a question in your own words, best first, each with a snippet.

Ranks the Manual's Pages for a question in your own words, best first, each with a snippet. Search is offline and deterministic, and knows GnuCash's words: "quantity" finds amount, "bill" finds document, a menu path such as "Stock Split" finds the Page for that menu item. Give kind to search one kind of Page and limit to cap the hits.

Examples

A method's own Page ranks first for the words of its name, ahead of an error that shares them:

Example: with no book.

JSON-RPC

Request:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"help.search","params":{"query":"open a book","limit":2}}

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "result": {
    "hits": [
      {
        "id": "method/book.open",
        "kind": "method",
        "title": "book.open",
        "summary": "…",
        "snippet": "…"
      },
      {
        "id": "error/book-already-open",
        "kind": "error",
        "title": "book-already-open",
        "summary": "…",
        "snippet": "…"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Command line

red-ale exec help.search '{"query":"open a book","limit":2}'

It prints:

{
  "hits": [
    {
      "id": "method/book.open",
      "kind": "method",
      "title": "book.open",
      "summary": "…",
      "snippet": "…"
    },
    {
      "id": "error/book-already-open",
      "kind": "error",
      "title": "book-already-open",
      "summary": "…",
      "snippet": "…"
    }
  ]
}

MCP tool call

Tool call:

{"name":"help.search","arguments":{"query":"open a book","limit":2}}

Result:

{
  "structuredContent": {
    "hits": [
      {
        "id": "method/book.open",
        "kind": "method",
        "title": "book.open",
        "summary": "…",
        "snippet": "…"
      },
      {
        "id": "error/book-already-open",
        "kind": "error",
        "title": "book-already-open",
        "summary": "…",
        "snippet": "…"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Example: with no book.

JSON-RPC

Request:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"help.search","params":{"query":"transaction does not balance","kind":"error","limit":2}}

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "result": {
    "hits": [
      {
        "id": "error/unbalanced",
        "kind": "error",
        "title": "unbalanced",
        "summary": "…",
        "snippet": "…"
      },
      "…"
    ]
  }
}

Command line

red-ale exec help.search '{"query":"transaction does not balance","kind":"error","limit":2}'

It prints:

{
  "hits": [
    {
      "id": "error/unbalanced",
      "kind": "error",
      "title": "unbalanced",
      "summary": "…",
      "snippet": "…"
    },
    "…"
  ]
}

MCP tool call

Tool call:

{"name":"help.search","arguments":{"query":"transaction does not balance","kind":"error","limit":2}}

Result:

{
  "structuredContent": {
    "hits": [
      {
        "id": "error/unbalanced",
        "kind": "error",
        "title": "unbalanced",
        "summary": "…",
        "snippet": "…"
      },
      "…"
    ]
  }
}

Effect: read.

Params

Params of help.search.

query (string, required): What to look for, in any words: a question, a GnuCash menu item ("Stock Split…"), a method name.
kind (PageKind or null): Only Pages of this kind.
limit (integer (uint32) or null): The most Pages to return, 1 to 100; 10 by default.

Result

Result of help.search.

hits (array of HelpHit, required): The Pages found, best first; ties in Page ID order.