AI Search for Drupal

Overview

Drupal sites tend to be large: councils, universities, charities, publishers. Visitors know what they need but not what the page is called, so the search box sends them away with nothing. The AI Search Bar answers what they mean: type "when are you open at the weekend" and it finds your Opening hours page, even though none of those words is in its title.

The module puts the bar on your site without any code. We read your pages ourselves, so there is no API key to create and nothing to paste.

Requirements

• Drupal 10 or 11.
• A server that can make outgoing HTTPS requests. Most hosts allow this.

Installing the Module

With Composer

composer require drupal/asyntai_search
drush en asyntai_search

Without Drush, open Extend in your Drupal administration, tick Asyntai AI Search and press Install.

From drupal.org

Download the module from its drupal.org project page, put it in modules/contrib, then enable it under Extend.

Connecting Your Site

1. Go to Configuration, then Search and metadata, then Asyntai AI Search.
2. Press Connect Asyntai. A window opens where you sign in or create a free account.
3. Wait a few minutes while we read your site. The settings screen tells you when the bar is live.

Only users with the Administer Asyntai AI Search permission see the settings screen.

Choosing Where the Bar Appears

There is one setting, Where the bar goes, with two answers.

In place of my theme search box

The bar finds the search box your theme already shows, hides it, and takes exactly the same place. Nothing in your theme has to be edited. If a visitor presses Enter without picking a result, your usual Drupal search page still opens, so nothing they already know stops working.

Some themes show no search box on the page. Olivero, for example, keeps its search behind a button. Then there is nothing to replace, and the settings screen says so. Use the block instead.

Only where I place the Asyntai AI Search block

Go to Structure, then Block layout, and place the Asyntai AI Search block in a region of your theme, for example the header. The settings screen has a Place the block button that takes you there.

Your theme styles the region, so the bar sits in the layout like anything else you put there.

The Other Settings

• Search box to replace. Leave it empty and we find the box ourselves. Fill in a CSS selector only if we pick the wrong one, for example .region-header form.search-form.
• Placeholder text. Leave it empty and each visitor sees it in their own language.
• Accent colour. A hex colour such as #0b5fff. Leave it empty to use the colour set in your Asyntai dashboard.

Trying It Before Your Visitors Do

The settings screen has a Try your search bar button. It opens your real search bar, on your real content, in a new tab. Searches you run there do not count against your monthly allowance.

Plans and Limits

A site connected through this module runs the bar on any plan, including the free one. Your monthly reply allowance still applies, and searches and chat replies share it. The settings screen shows how much of the month is left.

When the allowance runs out, the bar removes itself and your site's own search box comes straight back. Your visitors keep being able to search. They are never left typing into a box that answers nothing.

The module checks this on cron. On sites where cron never runs, it checks in the background on ordinary visitor traffic instead. The bar comes back by itself when your allowance resets.

What the Bar Searches

Your pages, as we read them from your site: basic pages, articles, and anything else a visitor can open. If you run Drupal Commerce, its product pages are read the same way, because they are pages on your site.

Caching

The module tags the pages it changes in Drupal's cache. Connecting, disconnecting and changing a setting clear those pages for you, so there is no cache to clear by hand. Administration pages never get the bar.

If Something Does Not Work

• No bar appears. Open the settings screen and read the line under the coloured dot. It says exactly why the bar is off.
• It says your theme has no search box. Place the Asyntai AI Search block, and set Where the bar goes to Only where I place the Asyntai AI Search block.
• Could not reach Asyntai. Your server cannot make outgoing HTTPS requests. Ask your host to allow them.
• The bar replaced the wrong element. Fill in Search box to replace with a CSS selector for the right one.
• Your browser blocked the pop-up. Allow pop-ups for your Drupal site and press Connect again.
• Drupal signed you out during the connect step. Log in again and press Connect once more.

Disconnecting

Press Disconnect this site on the settings screen. The bar stops at once and your usual Drupal search takes over. Uninstalling the module under Extend removes its settings and the saved connection, so a later reinstall starts clean.

Using the Chatbot as Well

This module adds the search bar only. To add the chat assistant too, follow our Drupal chatbot guide. The two work side by side on the same pages and share the same knowledge base.