// OPENBOX DOCS

Search syntax

The full grammar of the library search box.

The library search box supports field-targeted terms, quoted values, and negative terms. Terms are combined with implicit AND; a space-separated list narrows the results.

Interactive Search & Acronym Playground

Test initials matching, capability rules, field tokens, and negative filters

Live Filter Engine

Try query:

Matches 1 of 8 sample games Acronym matching active

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Nintendo 64

Nintendo·Action-Adventure·1998

#classic#favorite#3d

Field terms

Prefix a term with a field name and a colon to target one field:

Field	Matches
`title:`	Name, sort title, and alternate names
`platform:` (alias `plat:`)	Platform value (quote multi-word values: `platform:"PlayStation 2"`)
`dev:` (alias `developer:`)	Developer
`pub:` (alias `publisher:`)	Publisher
`series:`	Series
`genre:`	Genre
`region:`	Region
`notes:`	Notes
`source:` (aliases `store:`, `storefront:`)	Import source (Steam, Heroic, Lutris, ...)
`progress:`	Progress status
`status:`	Status
`play:` (alias `playmode:`)	Play mode
`rating:`	Rating
`favorite:` (alias `fav:`)	`favorite:yes` / `favorite:no`
`installed:`	`installed:yes` / `installed:no`
`hidden:` (alias `hide:`)	`hidden:yes` / `hidden:no`
`broken:`	`broken:yes` / `broken:no`
`portable:`	`portable:yes` / `portable:no`
`controller:`	Controller support
`tag:` (alias `tags:`)	Tag (see below)

Negative terms

Prefix any term with - to exclude it:

-tag:demo excludes games carrying a demo tag.
-platform:Windows excludes Windows games.
-title:hollow excludes games whose name contains "hollow".

Quoted values

Quote values that contain spaces or special characters:

platform:"PlayStation 2"
title:"The Legend of Zelda"

Bare terms

A bare term searches across name, sort title, alternate names, platform, genre, developer, publisher, series, region, notes, source, play mode, status, progress, controller support, and tags.

Acronym matching

Short bare terms (2 to 8 alphanumeric characters) automatically match game title acronyms and initials in addition to substring searches:

oot matches The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
mgs matches Metal Gear Solid
sotn matches Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
ff matches Final Fantasy

Leading articles (The, A, An) are handled cleanly so searches match with or without the leading word.

Examples

Query	Result
`title:hollow`	Games with "hollow" in the name/sort title/alternates
`platform:"PlayStation 2"`	PS2 games
`genre:rpg -tag:demo`	RPGs that do not carry the `demo` tag
`dev:team favorite:yes`	Favorited games by "team"
`installed:no`	Owned-but-uninstalled titles

Natural-language grammar (Backlog Radio query bar)

The query bar above the field syntax also accepts short natural phrases, parsed deterministically by pkg/parity/parity_query.py:33-37 and rendered as removable chips. Thresholds are named constants, surfaced in the chips:

Phrase	Meaning
`short` / `quick`	Time-to-beat at most 5.0h (`SHORT_GAME_HOURS`)
`long` / `epic`	Time-to-beat at least 20.0h (`LONG_GAME_HOURS`)
`highly rated`	Rating at least 4.0 (`HIGH_RATING_MIN`)
`top rated` / `best rated`	Rating at least 4.5 (`TOP_RATING_MIN`)
`retro` / `classic`	Released 2000 or earlier (`RETRO_YEAR_MAX`)
`recently played` / `newly added`	Within the last 31 days (`RECENT_DAYS`)

Typed keys (platform:PC, genre:rpg, source:, tag:, progress:, ESRB, region, series, player counts, ratings, time/idle phrases) combine with implicit AND. POST /api/v2/library/query/parse accepts query text up to 2,000 characters (handlers/library.py:825-826) and returns rules, clauses, chips, leftover unparsed words with a hint, and plain_query; input with nothing parsable stays a plain substring search. Clauses fail closed on missing metadata: ttb/year/played_within filters never match a game lacking the field (None → False), and idle/never-played semantics keep never-played games in the idle set (True) rather than guessing. See Backlog Radio.

Game DNA smart search

The sidebar search box has a Title | Smart toggle (default Title, persisted). Title mode is the grammar above. Smart mode runs fully offline — no cloud, no downloads — using classical information retrieval: BM25 plus a curated 151-concept lexicon (English, with German, Spanish, French, and Portuguese overlays) hashed into 1024 dimensions, with a 250 ms debounce. Smart results carry why explanation chips showing which concepts matched. More like this is available in the details pane, the card context menu, and Big Box (gamepad-operable toggle feeding the hybrid search, with why-chips as subtitle lines). The atomic sidecar index lives at <APP_DIR>/dna_index.json and is excluded from cloud sync; library mutations invalidate it automatically, and it can be rebuilt on demand.