LitMDX

Search

Full-text search powered by Pagefind

Search

LitMDX includes full-text search powered by Pagefind — a static search library that runs entirely in the browser. No server, no external API, no API key.

How it works

  1. litmdx build reads all .mdx source files, extracts text and titles, and generates a search index at dist/pagefind/.
  2. At runtime, the search modal dynamically loads pagefind.js from /pagefind/pagefind.js and queries the index in the browser.

Note

Search is not available in dev mode. The Pagefind index only exists after running litmdx build. In dev, the search modal opens but returns no results — this is expected.

Opening the search modal

Users can open the search modal in two ways:

  • Click the Search button in the header.
  • Press ⌘K on macOS or Ctrl+K on Windows/Linux.

Press Esc to close.

Keyboard navigation

Once results appear, use the keyboard to navigate:

KeyAction
↓ / ↑Move between results
EnterNavigate to the selected result
EscClose the modal

Search index content

The search index is built from the raw MDX source files. LitMDX extracts:

  • Page title (from frontmatter title or the first # Heading)
  • Body text (Markdown prose, stripped of syntax and JSX components)
  • URL (derived from the file path using the same routing logic)

Code blocks, import statements, and JSX component markup are excluded from the index.

Result highlighting

Matched terms in result excerpts are wrapped in <mark> tags and styled with a highlight color.

Installation requirement

Pagefind must be installed in your project:

bun add -D pagefind

If pagefind is not installed, the build still succeeds but a warning is printed and the search index is skipped.