Every node exposes a Search layout area — a configurable catalog of its content. Instead of a zoo of bespoke "children" / "instances" / "by-type" views, there is one area whose shape is controlled entirely by the URL. Navigate to ‹node›/Search, or embed it anywhere with @@, and tune it with query parameters.

The old dedicated Children area is now a thin alias of Search?groupBy=namespace — both share one implementation, so they can never drift. Prefer Search in new content.

The Search area

For a NodeType node the area instead lists the instances of that type; for any other node it lists the node's own children.

?groupBy= — how results are organised

The single most important knob. Append it to the URL (or, for an embedded area, to a standalone page link):

The Search area defaults to the graph navigator. (The Space Children catalog stays on the namespace tree.) Unknown or missing values fall back to the graph navigator (for a content catalog) or a hierarchical list (for a NodeType's instances).

Graph navigator

The default Search experience navigates the mesh along its edges. For the current node it shows:

• Above — the real ancestors as a clickable breadcrumb rail (scope:ancestors). Empty namespace segments are never nodes, so they don't appear.
• Below — the current node's subtree (one scope:descendants query), split into two groups: the real nodes at this level as a card grid (a node that also groups content gets a "drill in" affordance), and the pure sub-namespaces below it — path segments that group content but have no node of their own — as drill-down links. Empty intermediate namespace segments are skipped, so a node at a/b/node (where a, a/b are not nodes) surfaces directly.

Clicking a node card (or its drill affordance) or an ancestor re-roots the navigator there (/{path}/Search) and recomputes above + below — "navigate → visualize → navigate"; a secondary "open ↗" opens the node's own page. A pure sub-namespace has no node to open, so clicking it redirects to the search control scoped to that namespace (/search?ns={namespace}) instead of re-rooting into a non-existent node page. Both levels are live hub.GetQuery(...) collections (see Synced Mesh Node Queries).

/ACME/Search                     → graph navigator rooted at ACME
/ACME/Search?groupBy=tree        → namespace tree of ACME's content
/ACME/Search?groupBy=type        → ACME's content grouped by NodeType
/ACME/Search?groupBy=flat        → a flat card grid

?subtree= — depth

By default the catalog shows only the node's direct children. Set ?subtree=true (also 1, yes, on) to include the entire descendant subtree — useful with groupBy=type to answer "every Story anywhere under this space", or with groupBy=namespace to pre-expand the whole tree.

/ACME/Search?groupBy=type&subtree=true     → every node under ACME, grouped by type

Display options

Every knob of the catalog is URL-driven — there is nothing hard-coded you can't override. Booleans accept true/1/yes/on (anything else, or absence, is the stated default); ints must be positive.

Combine freely with ?groupBy / ?subtree:

/ACME/Search?groupBy=type&searchBar=false&maxColumns=4&counts=false&title=Contents

Drilldown

In namespace-tree mode the catalog is lazy: only the direct children of the root are queried up front, and each sub-namespace folder is queried on expand — so a deep space opens instantly and you pay only for the branches you actually open. Typing in the search box switches to a subtree search whose hits are regrouped by relative namespace. In the flat / grouped / hierarchical modes, clicking a card navigates to that node (its own Search area, one level down).

Embedding a catalog in a page

The Space welcome page ships a catalog embed; you can move or delete it, or add your own. Inside any Markdown body (a Space body, a Markdown node, an agent definition):

## Everything in this space

@@("area/Search")

The @@ double-at prefix renders the area inline; a single @ would render a link instead. Absolute (@@/ACME/area/Search) and relative (@@("area/Search")) forms both work — see the embed syntax in Layout Areas.

Under the hood

The area is built on the MeshSearchControl — a hidden query (always applied) plus a visible query (the search box) over the mesh, rendered through one of the modes above. groupBy=namespace uses a per-level builder with child-count probes; groupBy=type/category group the result set by a node property. The hidden query is just the Query Syntax — e.g. namespace:ACME is:main -nodeType:NodeType, extended with scope:descendants when subtree is on — so anything you can express as a query, you can scope a catalog to.

You can declare the control directly in your own layout areas. This one searches the GUI documentation you are reading — type into the box and the grid filters live:

new MeshSearchControl()
    .WithTitle("GUI documentation")
    .WithHiddenQuery("namespace:Doc/GUI scope:descendants nodeType:Markdown")
    .WithNamespace("Doc/GUI")
    .WithRenderMode(MeshSearchRenderMode.Flat)
    .WithMaxColumns(3)
    .WithItemLimit(6)
    .WithPlaceholder("Search GUI docs…")

For just the autocomplete input — without the result grid — use the lighter SearchBoxControl:

Controls.SearchBox
    .WithPlaceholder("Search the documentation…")
    .WithNamespace("Doc")
    .WithNavigateOnSelect(false)
    .WithMaxSuggestions(8)

Back to the GUI overview.