Every modern application is built on search. From finding a user in your database to retrieving product details or aggregating customer data, search functions are the connective tissue of your software. But a truly robust search function is far more than a simple SELECT query. It's a critical business asset—a living piece of code that needs to be versioned, tested, and deployed with the same rigor as any other core service.
When you treat your data retrieval logic as "Business-as-Code," you unlock incredible power. You create reusable, scalable, and maintainable services. The challenge is that the boilerplate required to manage the lifecycle of a single search function—from API gateway to security and scaling—can be overwhelming.
This post breaks down the complete anatomy of a production-ready search function and shows how you can manage its lifecycle with confidence.
Before we talk about deployment, let's dissect the components of a well-structured search function, or what we at Searches.do call a "search agent."
A reliable search begins with a clear and predictable contract. Instead of passing a messy query string, a great search function accepts structured parameters. This ensures that any application calling your search knows exactly what to provide.
Example: Instead of ?q=jane.doe@example.com, you define a clear input structure.
{
"searchId": "find-customer-by-email",
"parameters": {
"email": "jane.doe@example.com"
}
}
This approach makes your API self-documenting, easier to validate, and less prone to breaking changes.
This is the brain of your operation. The real world is messy, and your data is rarely in one place. A powerful search function's logic can:
With a platform like Searches.do, you define this complex logic once in a simple TypeScript handler. You have the full power of code to fetch and combine data from any source you need.
Just as the inputs are predictable, the output must be a consistent, well-defined structure. This allows frontend developers, mobile apps, and other microservices to consume your search results with confidence, knowing exactly which fields to expect.
A successful response from our find-customer-by-email search agent would look like this every time:
{
"status": "success",
"result": {
"customerId": "cust_1A2b3C4d5E6f",
"firstName": "Jane",
"lastName": "Doe",
"email": "jane.doe@example.com",
"accountStatus": "active"
}
}
This consistency is the foundation of a reliable "headless search" experience.
Writing the logic is just the beginning. The real challenge—and value—comes from managing the function's lifecycle effectively.
Your business will evolve, and so will your data needs. What happens when the marketing team needs a lastLoginDate field added to the customer search result? If you just add it, you risk breaking the mobile app that isn't expecting it.
The Challenge: Managing multiple versions of an API endpoint is complex. It requires careful routing, code management, and documentation.
The Solution with Searches.do: Treat each search agent as a versionable asset. You can deploy a new version of your find-customer-by-email agent (e.g., v2) with the new field, while the original version continues to serve existing applications without interruption. This decouples your development cycles and allows you to innovate safely.
How can you be sure your search function works? Especially when it relies on multiple internal and external data sources?
The Challenge: Integration testing is brittle and slow. Setting up mock servers for third-party APIs is time-consuming.
The Solution with Searches.do: By encapsulating your business logic in a dedicated handler function, testing becomes remarkably simple. You can write standard unit tests for your TypeScript function to verify the logic, transformations, and error handling in isolation. The platform guarantees that the surrounding infrastructure (API gateway, authentication) is already tested and reliable, letting you focus solely on your business code.
This is where most developers lose countless hours. You've written and tested your function. Now you need to stand it up as a secure, scalable API endpoint. This traditionally involves:
The Challenge: This is undifferentiated heavy lifting that takes you away from solving the actual business problem.
The Solution with Searches.do: This is our entire reason for being. You write the search agent logic. You git push. That's it. We instantly deploy your function as a secure, scalable API endpoint. All the infrastructure—the API gateway, security, and hosting—is handled for you. You go from a data retrieval idea to a production-ready API in minutes, not weeks.
When you master the full anatomy and lifecycle of your search functions, you're no longer just writing queries. You are building a catalog of reusable business capabilities. Your find-customer agent can be used by the web app, the mobile app, the analytics team, and the customer support platform, all with zero code duplication.
This is the power of headless search and Business-as-Code. You create a stable, reliable data retrieval layer that accelerates development across your entire organization.
Ready to stop wrestling with API boilerplate and start deploying intelligent search agents with confidence?
Explore Searches.do and turn your first data query into a reusable API today.