In-memory

Detailed information on the in-memory search component

The in-memory search store keeps every index in the memory of the Dapr sidecar. Use it for local development and tests that need no external search service. It is not durable: indexes and documents are lost when the sidecar stops, and they aren’t shared between sidecar instances.

Component format

To set up an in-memory search store, create a component of type search.in-memory. See this guide on how to create and apply a search store configuration.

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: <NAME>
spec:
  type: search.in-memory
  version: v1
  metadata:
  - name: indexingDelay
    value: "0s"

Spec metadata fields

FieldRequiredDetailsExample
indexingDelayNQueues every write and applies it once this delay has passed, so that you can test queued acknowledgements and wait timeouts. Defaults to "0s", which applies writes before the call returns."2s"

Supported features

FeatureSupportedDetails
Full-text searchYSee scores and total hits.
FilteringY
SortingY
HighlightingNA query with highlightFields returns UNIMPLEMENTED.
PaginationYContinuation tokens are offset based.
Native queriesNA query with native returns UNIMPLEMENTED.
Queued acknowledgementYWrites return INDEX_ACK_QUEUED when indexingDelay is set, so INDEXING_WAIT_TIMEOUT_ACTION_CONTINUE_ASYNC is supported. Without a delay, writes return INDEX_ACK_COMPLETED.
Wait for completionYWith indexingDelay set, the request waits for the queued write, up to waitTimeout.

Scores and total hits

  • A full-text query searches the searchFields of the query, or every content field when searchFields isn’t set. Matching is case-insensitive, and text is split into words of letters and digits.
  • A document matches only when every query term occurs in the searched fields. The hit score is the number of times the query terms occur.
  • Without sort, hits are ordered by score, highest first, then by document ID. With sort, the score and document ID break ties.
  • totalHits is exact and reported with TOTAL_HITS_RELATION_EXACT.
  • When topK isn’t set, the component returns up to 10 hits per page.
Last modified October 21, 2026: docs(components): add in-memory search and vector pages, 1.19 fixes (9bf5e4fcc)