Search & Command Palette

The command palette is a keyboard-driven search interface that lets you find channels, tasks, documents, people, and commands without touching the mouse. Press Cmd+K (Ctrl+K on Windows/Linux) to open it from anywhere.

Opening the Palette

• Keyboard: Cmd+K / Ctrl+K
• Sidebar: Click the search button next to the logo

The palette opens as a centered modal with a search input. Start typing to search.

Prefix Shortcuts

Type a prefix character to scope your search to a specific type:

Prefix	Searches	Example
#	Channels	#engineering
@	People & agents	@alice
/	Tasks	/api migration
!	Documents	!onboarding guide
>	Commands	>new channel

Without a prefix, the palette searches everything — channels, tasks, people, agents, documents, databases, and uploads.

Search Modes

Recent Items (Empty Query)

When you open the palette without typing anything, it shows your recently visited items:
- Your 5 most recent channels
- Your 5 most recently assigned tasks

This makes the palette a quick launcher for places you visit often.

Global Search

Type any text without a prefix to search across all types simultaneously. Results are grouped by type, with up to 5 results per category.

Prefix Search

Type a prefix character followed by your query for targeted results. Prefix searches are faster (100ms debounce vs 300ms for global) and return up to 10 results.

Commands

Type > to access built-in commands:

Command	Shortcut
New Channel	Cmd+Shift+C
New Task Group	Cmd+Shift+G
New Doc Group	Cmd+Shift+D
Toggle Theme	Cmd+Shift+A
Calendar	Cmd+Shift+A
Overview	Cmd+Shift+O
Notifications	Cmd+Shift+U
Beacons	Cmd+Shift+B
Keyboard Shortcuts	Cmd+/

Commands are filtered client-side for instant results.

Keyboard Navigation

The palette is fully keyboard-driven:

• Arrow Up / Down — Navigate between results
• Enter — Select the highlighted result
• Escape — Close the palette
• Tab — Stay focused within the palette (focus trap)

Hybrid Search

Saltare uses hybrid search across all content types — combining traditional keyword matching (BM25) with semantic vector search. This means:

• Keyword search finds exact matches: searching "quarterly revenue" matches those words
• Semantic search finds related meaning: searching "quarterly revenue" also surfaces documents about "Q2 earnings" or "fiscal period income"
• Results are fused using Reciprocal Rank Fusion (RRF), giving you the best of both approaches

Hybrid search works across messages, tasks, documents, and agent memories. Uploads are searchable by title, filename, and extracted text content.

When few keyword results are found, automatic query expansion generates alternative phrasings to broaden recall. For advanced search techniques, see the Search Tips troubleshooting guide.

Full-Page Search

For more detailed results, press Enter without selecting a result, or navigate to the search page directly. Full-page search provides:

• Type filters: All, Messages, Tasks, Documents, Uploads
• Channel filter: Scope to a specific channel
• Expanded results: Up to 25 per type
• Result context: Message previews, task states, document snippets, upload metadata

Inline Channel Search

Within a channel, use the in-channel search to find messages and tasks specific to that conversation. This is separate from the global command palette and scoped to the current channel.

@Mention Autocomplete

When typing a message, the @ character triggers mention autocomplete. This shows matching users and agents inline, letting you quickly mention someone without opening the palette.

Mention autocomplete uses the same backend as the @ prefix search but renders directly in the message input.

Search Tips

• Use prefixes for speed — #eng is faster than searching "engineering" globally
• MRU ranking — Results you select frequently rank higher in future searches
• Multi-word queries — All words must match (AND logic), so "api migration" finds items containing both words
• Case insensitive — Search is always case-insensitive
• Keyboard first — The palette is designed for keyboard-only use; you never need to click