As the person who filed T410602, it would have been nice to have an API taking in a search query and returning a set of results, as well as explaining why these results were chosen (e.g title, related, displaytitle, defaultsort, etc.) and their ranking (pageviews, etc.) Possibly unrelated, but a Wikitech/Mediawiki page containing a step-by-step guide on how the Search system works (as well as the function names/files involved in each step) would have been helpful as well, since I found the codebase to be labrynthine.

In T411169#11413479, @ChildrenWillListen wrote:

As the person who filed T410602, it would have been nice to have an API taking in a search query and returning a set of results, as well as explaining why these results were chosen (e.g title, related, displaytitle, defaultsort, etc.) and their ranking (pageviews, etc.) Possibly unrelated, but a Wikitech/Mediawiki page containing a step-by-step guide on how the Search system works (as well as the function names/files involved in each step) would have been helpful as well, since I found the codebase to be labrynthine.

This does exist, but it's probably not too meaningful to people outside the search team:

https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?search=opensearch&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&cirrusDumpResult&cirrusExplain=pretty
https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?search=opensearch&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&cirrusDumpResult&cirrusExplain=verbose
https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?search=opensearch&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&cirrusDumpResult&cirrusExplain=raw

They are even less understandable on wikis that use ML for ranking:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=opensearch&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&cirrusDumpResult&cirrusExplain=pretty

Change #1225644 had a related patch set uploaded (by Ebernhardson; author: Ebernhardson):

[mediawiki/extensions/CirrusSearch@master] Add unified cirrus-schema-dump API endpoint

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1225644

Change #1225661 had a related patch set uploaded (by Ebernhardson; author: Ebernhardson):

[mediawiki/extensions/CirrusSearch@master] Add action=cirrussuggestdump

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1225661

Documentation has been placed: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:CirrusSearch/Debug

This is not yet linked anywhere, it will probably go somewhere in Help:CirrusSearch but haven't decided where yet. There are a couple things documented in there that are waiting on patch merge / deploy.

Change #1225644 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/CirrusSearch@master] Add unified cirrus-schema-dump API endpoint

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1225644

Change #1225661 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/CirrusSearch@master] Add action=cirrussuggestdump

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1225661

Not entirely sure, but this might be reasonable to include in tech news.

@EBernhardson how should it be worded?

In T411169#11575082, @EBernhardson wrote:

Not entirely sure, but this might be reasonable to include in tech news.

@STei-WMF

I think the existing lead section should be short enough, something like:

New documentation is available to debug on-site search features aimed at wiki editors who want to troubleshoot search issues, understand indexing behavior, or debug search relevancy. If a page isn't appearing in search results, results are ranked unexpectedly, or you want to see what content is actually being indexed, these tools can help. [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:CirrusSearch/Debug Learn more].

@EBernhardson thank you. Should it go out in Monday 16th's Tech News? (The wording suggests so, but I want to doublecheck)

In T411169#11602592, @EBernhardson wrote:

@STei-WMF

I think the existing lead section should be short enough, something like:

New documentation is available to debug on-site search features aimed at wiki editors who want to troubleshoot search issues, understand indexing behavior, or debug search relevancy. If a page isn't appearing in search results, results are ranked unexpectedly, or you want to see what content is actually being indexed, these tools can help. [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:CirrusSearch/Debug Learn more].

In T411169#11611012, @STei-WMF wrote:

@EBernhardson thank you. Should it go out in Monday 16th's Tech News? (The wording suggests so, but I want to doublecheck)

Yup, this is ready to go. Thanks!