Today I'm proud to announce that Meilisearch has closed a $5M USD Seed funding round led by [CRV](https://www.crv.com/) with the participation of Robin Vasan ([Mango Capital](http://www.mangocap.com/)), Guillermo Rauch (CEO of [Vercel](https://vercel.com/meili)), and returning investors [LocalGlobe](https://localglobe.vc/) and [Seedcamp](https://seedcamp.com/).

What is Meilisearch?
====================

For more than two years now, we have been working to redefine the world of user-facing search.

We chose to tackle this challenge for a few reasons. From a user perspective, we were tired of seeing great products with terrible search bars. As developers, we also knew how difficult it is to set up a good search experience: there are few tools available, and of those, most are either too complicated, too expensive, or not powerful enough.

From the start, we made several bold choices that empowered us to create Meilisearch as it is today.

First, we chose to make our project open source. We did this primarily because it was our reflex as developers, but also because it was the best way to reach the maximum number of users. From the beginning our goal was to provide a good search engine for developers; why wait until we deemed the product complete to put it in their hands? Instead of building something for our users, we chose to build alongside them.

Secondly, we picked Rust as the main programming language for our engine. This was a difficult choice in 2019, because although it was elected the language of the year, few companies had invested in this technology and the number of dedicated Rust developers was still small. We forged ahead because we believed that its superior performance would more than make up for any potential downsides.

These choices, while counterintuitive at the time, have become our greatest strengths. Starting from our very first public communication, there was an overwhelming response from developers. For several months in a row, we were one of the fastest-growing open-source projects on GitHub. That's when we decided to raise our first round of funding from European investors to double down on our product and growth.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Screenshot_2022_01_18_at_15_01_22_482f82eba5.jpg)

In less than two years the project has grown enormously: today we have more than 20k stars on GitHub, almost 100k developers using our engine every month, and thousands of servers in production. Our product managed to strike a chord in the heart of developers who were tired of inadequate search. In doing so, we fulfilled the mission we set ourselves at the beginning.

What's next?
============

Our latest round of funding allows us to invest more heavily in our community. We’ve already created a product that sparks developers’ imaginations; now our mission is to give them the tools and support they need to build amazing sites and apps with Meilisearch. We will do this by building a team whose sole purpose will be managing, feeding, and growing an inclusive community.

Of course, we will also continue to work on our product. We have many new features coming that have been massively requested by users.

In addition, now that we have so many users on our open source project, we are getting more and more requests from companies that would like to use a version of Meilisearch managed by us instead of having to manage the service themselves. That's why we started to develop [Meilisearch Cloud](https://meilisearch.typeform.com/to/FtnzvZfh?typeform-source=admin.typeform.com) a few months ago. With Meilisearch Cloud, we are taking the power and simplicity of our engine, optimizing for it, and managing it for our users. In just a few weeks of beta, we have already received hundreds of requests for access.

If you’ve supported, used, or contributed to Meilisearch in the past: thank you! We are planning to grow the team and will be recruiting all kinds of roles in the coming months. If you want to help us shape the future of website and app search, we're [looking for more talent](https://www.welcometothejungle.com/companies/meilisearch) to help us sustain our vision.

  
Quentin de Quelen - CEO of Meilisearch

Meilisearch raises a $5M Seed to change the world of user-facing search

In this article, we will take a look at some of the main and breaking changes introduced by v0.25. You can also read the [full changelog on GitHub](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.25.0).

Breaking changes
----------------

### API key management

Starting from this release, developers can now create API keys with specific permissions and expiration dates, allowing precise control over which users/applications can access which indexes and endpoints.

As part of this feature, the `private` and `public` keys are deprecated and replaced by two default API keys with similar permissions: `Default Admin API Key` and `Default Search API Key`.

The `X-MEILI-API-KEY: <apiKey>` header is replaced by the `Authorization: Bearer <apiKey>` header.

Let's say that you're creating an application in the medical industry. Here's how to create an API key that only has access to search endpoints on the `patient_medical_records` index:

```bash
curl \
 -X POST 'http://localhost:7700/keys/' \
 -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
 -H 'Authorization: Bearer [your_master_key]' \
 --data-binary '{
 "description": "Search patient records key",
 "actions": [
 "search"
 ],
 "indexes": ["patient_medical_records"],
 "expiresAt": "2023-01-01T00:00:00Z"
 }'

```

**Response: `201 Created`**

```json
{
 "description": "Search patient records key",
 "key": "d0552b41536279a0ad88bd595327b96f01176a60c2243e906c52ac02375f9bc4",
 "actions": [
 "search"
 ],
 "indexes": [
 "patient_medical_records"
 ],
 "expiresAt": "2023-01-01T00:00:00Z",
 "createdAt": "2022-01-01T10:00:00Z",
 "updatedAt": "2022-01-01T10:00:00Z"
}

```

A user could then supply this key to make search requests on the `patient_medical_records` index:

```bash
curl \
 -X POST 'http://localhost:7700/indexes/patient_medical_records/search' \
 -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
 -H 'Authorization: Bearer d0552b41536279a0ad88bd595327b96f01176a60c2243e906c52ac02375f9bc4' \
 --data-binary '{ "q": "trypophobia" }'

```

For more information, read our new guide to [securing a Meilisearch instance](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/security/master_api_keys).

### Asynchronous operations

With v0.25, we refashioned Meilisearch's asynchronous operations from the ground up, replacing the `updates` API with the new `tasks` API.

In a related change, creating, updating, and deleting indexes are now asynchronous operations. This fix eliminates the potential for race conditions.

Before v0.25, any request handled asynchronously (e.g. adding documents) returned an `updateId` for tracking the status of the operation:

```json
{ "updateId": 1 }

```

After v0.25, asynchronous operations will now return a summarized version of the _task_ object:

```json
{
 "uid": 1,
 "indexUid": "patient_medical_records",
 "status": "enqueued",
 "type": "documentAddition",
 "enqueuedAt": "2021-08-10T14:29:17.000000Z",
}

```

You can get the full _task_ object—and the current status of the operation—using the `/tasks` route.

```bash
curl \
 -X GET 'http://localhost:7700/tasks/1'
 
```

**Response: `200 Ok`**

```json
{
 "uid": 1,
 "indexUid": "patient_medical_records",
 "status": "succeeded",
 "type": "documentAddition",
 "details": { 
 "receivedDocuments": 1,
 "indexedDocuments": 1
 },
 "duration": "PT1S",
 "enqueuedAt": "2021-08-10T14:29:17.000000Z",
 "startedAt": "2021-08-10T14:29:18.000000Z",
 "finishedAt": "2021-08-10T14:29:19.000000Z"
}

```

Here the task has succeeded. Other possible statuses for a task are `enqueued`, `processing`, or `failed`.

When a task fails, Meilisearch returns an `error` object as part of the response:

```json
{
 "uid": 2,
 "indexUid": "patient_medical_records",
 "status": "failed",
 "type": "documentAddition",
 "details": { 
 "receivedDocuments": 1,
 "indexedDocuments": 0
 },
 "error": {
 "message": "Document does not have a `:primaryKey` attribute: `:documentRepresentation`.",
 "code": "internal",
 "type": "missing_document_id",
 "link": "https://docs.meilisearch.com/errors#missing-document-id",
 },
 "duration": "PT1S",
 "enqueuedAt": "2021-08-11T14:29:17.000000Z",
 "startedAt": "2021-08-11T14:29:18.000000Z",
 "finishedAt": "2021-08-11T14:29:19.000000Z"
}

```

For more information, check out the [Asynchronous operations](https://docs.meilisearch.com/learn/advanced/asynchronous_operations.html) article or the [tasks API reference](https://docs.meilisearch.com/reference/api/tasks.html).

Other changes
-------------

* **Cross-version compatibility:** Meilisearch v0.25 and subsequent releases are incompatible with dumps created prior to v0.22. 
 To migrate a dump from pre-v0.22 to v0.25 Meilisearch, first load your dump into v0.24.0, create a dump using v0.24.0, and then import this dump into v0.25.0.
* We have added several new error messages, most of which are related to managing API keys.
* `matches` now highlights string and numeric values.
* We added some new telemetry metrics.

Contributors
------------

A big thank you to all our contributors! This project couldn't get very far without your help.

Thanks to [@Mcdostone](https://github.com/Mcdostone) and [@Thearas](https://github.com/Thearas) for your help with Meilisearch, and to [@datamaker](https://github.com/datamaker) and [@Samyak2](https://github.com/Samyak2) for your help with our Tokenizer library.

* * *

If you want more details on updates we didn’t mention here, check out our [release changelog](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.25.0).

What's new in v0.25

When your office changes from a physical place to a virtual space, there comes a time when you realize an important member of your team is missing. It may not be apparent at first—the feeling comes gradually.

After counting everyone twice and checking that we hadn’t mislaid our COO in the wilderness, we had to face the facts.

What we had lost was our coffee machine.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/PXL_20211119_081346843_2_7836815556.jpg)

The deserted kitchen at Meilisearch's parisian office

With it, we lost the informal discussions we used to have in our kitchen looking out on the rooftops of Paris. The small details of our coworkers' lives we learned day by day, the discoveries—that another team slew a bug, or that someone had a ready-made answer to a question bothering you: all these pouches of intimacy and shared knowledge had to be created anew.

Meilisearch veterans had a structure to fall back on, but **for new arrivals, this level of trust had to be built from scratch, without a physical office**. In this article, we'll take you with us on that journey and explain how we encourage informal discussions at Meilisearch.

We pay special attention to our onboarding process
--------------------------------------------------

**We try to make sure each new member of the team feels welcome on their first day.** We want to take away as much stress and awkwardness as we can to make the first few weeks as smooth as possible.

Before the start of the contract, we schedule meetings with each and every person in the team. **The lineup of the calendar for the first two weeks is already clear**: our priority is for new Meilisearch members to chat with everyone. They typically last 25 to 50 minutes and can be with 1–3 persons at a time. The goal of these meetings is for everyone to explain what they do at Meilisearch of course, but also to break the ice for further discussion down the line: it's the mixing of the coffee beans!

In between chatting with their new coworkers, the new recruits can read our Team Page on Notion. **Each person has a detailed profile** with their communication preferences and their preferred work style, their quirks and the qualities they value, what may drive them nuts and what people might misunderstand about them.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/PXL_20211119_081317469_2_38cd23ba4c.jpg)

To be or not to be, that is the question

Each member can then share anything they like about them. We believe our biographies are a concentrated dose of a few months of small talk, all in one place!

We create dedicated spaces in our chat and schedules
----------------------------------------------------

**We are very proud of our team: it’s a collection of people with diverse interests and backgrounds.** We believe this stems from our roots at Ecole 42, but that’s a subject for our next blogpost! This makes our discussions interesting and sundry.

Our Slack channels reflect some of that range: we have channels dedicated to cats, food, cinema, games, music, books and of course: the #**random** channel! This is where we speak of our travels, share photos of the first snow, and recommend pieces of content that we enjoyed. We even developed an emoji-rating system for movies and cultural experiences!

Any Meilisearch employee who wishes to can join the Random Coffee channel and **be randomly matched with another person for a coffee later that week**. It's a time to chat about anything and everything—the brewing time.

We use huddles on Slack for weeklies and other meetings. But sometimes, we need a [rubber duck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging) who talks and listens to us rather than the written chat! Our team is most fond of Discord and coding together with their mics on.

We organise special events
--------------------------

We started doing after-work hangouts on Zoom during the first lockdown in France. Then there was a slight decline… until we realized we really missed them! **These events are not mandatory.** We play games together: Skribbl, Gartic Phone, Codenames… and anything we feel like!

Twice a year, we also have our in-person get-togethers: the offsites! **We strive to make them a comfortable and enjoyable experience for everyone, accommodating people’s needs and leaving plenty of pockets of free time.** We share some experiences and have fun together. These are our coffee add-ons: the milk, cream, glitter, and sprinkles on top!

We're always chasing the perfect blend
--------------------------------------

We believe Meilisearch as an organisation has a responsibility to build and provide the space and tools to make communication possible. **But we also firmly believe that the next step is giving the wheel to our team members and trusting them to have the discussions they want.**

We are always testing and researching ways to give our team members a leg up on the long process of building connections. As such, we expect to release a part two of this blog post as soon as we discover new flavors to add to our coffee mix!

P.-S. The Team Tea of Meilisearch wishes to reassure any future coworker that yes, we do have tea, and no, we aren’t all coffee maniacs.

Let it brew: how we create space for casual conversation within our remote team

For the second year in a row, Meilisearch participated in Hacktoberfest. Find below the recap of the event that was initially shared internally at Meilisearch.

We'll be part of Hacktoberfest 2022! And we hope to see even more contributors getting involved.  
  
Find below the slides of this presentation:

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_49_2_717c3abd1c.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_51_2_7f1cc7df8d.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_52_2_ccaf431921.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_53_2_be872350aa.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_54_2_3_758dee7af0.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_55_2_99f306c4c3.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_56_2_0185e812be.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_57_2_0e9fb3fe26.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_58_2_4681a1e6c3.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_59_2_b411d671bc.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_00_2_dddb055c1e.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_01_2_6a3b6c6c8a.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_02_2_1_a9fe38de82.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_02_1_2_57b91edfaf.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_03_2_15497fbba8.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_04_2_fe4319c582.png)

Hacktoberfest 2021 recap

One of the main responsibilities of the developer relations team at Meilisearch is to help our open-source search engine reach as many developers as possible. This involves, among other missions, participating in conferences and events.

Conference organizers usually publish a Call for Papers / Proposals (CFP), which is an open invitation for speakers to apply to their event, usually with a title and an abstract at minimum. Over the last year, I’ve had to submit—or help colleagues submit—numerous talk suggestions to conferences. Being a novice in the field, I set out to discover some of the secrets to successfully responding to a CFP.

I read a lot of articles and even listened to an hour-long presentation about CFPs so you don’t have to 🙌 In this article, I’ll present what I’ve learned based on the most recurrent recommendations.

The abstract
------------

The abstract is your pitch, it’s what is going to be published. You should focus on this first as it is what helps people decide if they want to attend your talk.

### ✅ Do's

**Be direct and concise**

Put yourself in the evaluator’s shoes. If you have 100 submissions to go through, you’ll appreciate the ones which get straight to the point. You should make your abstract easy to skim-read.

**Target your audience**

You need to know your audience,  their needs, and interests. Are you going to talk to developers, designers, executives, or some other audience?

Ok, but if it’s your first time attending a particular conference, how do you get this information?

Well, sometimes conference organizers provide an audience profile. But if it’s not the case, here are some good tips by the great [VM Brasseur](https://twitter.com/vmbrasseur):

*   you can contact them and ask for it

If it’s too late for that:

*   check the sponsorship prospectus: there’s usually information about the audience
*   check the schedule and social media of past editions of the event

**Establish a challenge or a problem**

Your talk should be about something that interests you. It could be a problem you’ve had, or that you’ve helped someone with. It doesn’t matter so much if you have managed to solve the problem or not. You can share your experience and what you’ve learned from it.

It can also be a widespread opinion you disagree with, a tool that has helped you, or something you wish you had known when you started.

Don’t forget, people like hearing stories, so if you think it’s something worth sharing, go for it. If you're not sure, assume that your story may be interesting to others. So go for it, what's the worst that can happen? Either way, try to present it in a way that gets your audience's interest, that’s why it’s important to know who you are going to be talking to.

**Specify the format of the talk you are giving**

The potential audience wants to know what to expect: is it going to be a workshop, a case study, a live demo? We all have different learning styles. Knowing the format beforehand will help the conference participants select the right talk for them.

**Specify the background knowledge the audience should have**

Should the audience know a particular programming language? Is it suitable for beginners? Giving this type of information will avoid wasting the time of the attendees.

**List key takeaways for your audience**

There is a statement from Sarah Mei that stuck with me:

> _People don’t go to talks for the content. People go to talks because they think they’ll become more badass. So help them out with that!_

People want to know what they will learn from your talk, the specific benefits they’ll get from it, what they will be able to do after your talk that they could not do before.

### ❌ Don'ts

**Don’t pitch your company / organization / product**

Nobody wants to hear a sales pitch. Your proposal will be rejected if it looks like a commercial in the slightest.

If you want to talk about something cool your company does, focus on the problem solved.

A little trick is to do what the dotConferences organizers have named the _Steve test_. Imagine an attendee named Steve, seated at the front row. Steve is so stubborn you know he would never use your product. The challenge is to make your talk as engaging and insightful to Steve as to anyone else. It will only work if you focus on the technical insights rather than your product. You can include your product along with alternative solutions and present the benefits and downsides.

**Don’t be aggressive or condescending**

Please have your abstract reviewed by a colleague or friend, preferably a native speaker. Someone who might identify this kind of language or tone you may not have intended to have.

**Don’t present your solution as the perfect one**

Be humble. You may have a great solution, but it cannot fit every need and context. You don’t want to sound arrogant so talk about when your solution is appropriate and when it’s not.

**Don’t include identifying information (name, title, company)**

This information belongs in the bio, not in the abstract. A lot of conferences practice blind reviewing to ensure submissions are reviewed fairly, so if you don’t want your proposal sent back for modifications or rejected, it’s better to avoid sharing these details.

**Don’t deceive the participants**

Don’t make promises you are not going to fulfill. Maybe you will get more people to attend your talk, but at what cost? Leaving the audience with a feeling of disappointment?

#### Standard formula

If you are new to CFPs you may want to stick to the following structure when writing abstracts:

*   Start with a strong introductory sentence that grabs attention (why is your topic important or relevant)
*   Detail paragraph: specific points you are going to address, give people an idea of what to expect
*   List audience takeaways
*   Closing paragraph (if needed)

The title
---------

*   Write it at the end, once you have finished writing the abstract
*   Avoid jokes: you never know how they will be perceived
*   Be polite
*   You can go for clickbait, it works
*   Keep it short, less than 50 characters

In his 2016 “[_Three tips for getting a talk accepted at Fluent_](https://medium.com/@bentlegen/three-tips-for-getting-a-talk-accepted-at-fluent-9eff841efc54)”, Ben Vinegar, gives really good examples of how to modify titles to engage the audience and show your unique perspective:

> '_How to use Angular'_ can be transformed into '_How we use Angular at my organization'_.

> '_How to get involved in open source'_ can be tweaked to become '_How I got involved in open source and you can too'._

Points worth remembering
------------------------

*   You are trying to persuade people to spend X minutes of their time listening to your presentation
*   Bullet points and short paragraphs are your friends
*   Focus on the audience, use “you” sentences
*   People like real experiences about real people: tell a story, create a narrative
*   You don’t have to be an expert on the subject, but don’t suggest subjects you are not qualified to talk about
*   You are the expert on your own experience

Conclusion
----------

I hope you’ll find this article useful. Of course, there is no magic formula for your application to be accepted. There are a thousand reasons why your talk can be rejected, even if you have the best title and abstract in the world. But it’s always better to stack all the odds in your favor!

* * *

_Picture by [Etienne Girardet](https://unsplash.com/@etiennegirardet) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/)_

CFPs: Writing Recommendations

In this new version of Meilisearch, we focused on improving our error handler and reviewing our data collection policy—but don't worry, we still managed to squeeze in quite a few quality-of-life updates. We'll go through the most important bits here, but you can check out the [full changelog](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.24.0) on our GitHub release page.

Breaking change: Improved error handling
----------------------------------------

Our revamp of the error handler started with minor changes to field and value names: `errorCode`, `errorType`, and `errorLink` have been shortened to `code`, `type`, and `link` respectively, and the three possible values for `type` have been shortened to `invalid_request`, `internal`, and `auth`.

```JSON
 {
 "message": "authorization header is missing",
 "code": "missing_authorization_header",
 "type": "auth",
 "link": "https://docs.meilisearch.com/errors#missing_authorization_header"
 }
```

In a related change, the update response in case of an error has been altered.

```JSON
{
 "status": "failed",
 "updateId": 1,
 // ...
 "error": {
	 "message": "Document `:documentId` not found.",
 	"code": "document_not_found",
 	"type": "invalid_request",
 	"link": "https://docs.meilisearch.com/errors#document_not_found"
 },
 }
```

**Instead of being located directly in the body, error fields are now located in a nested error object.**

Most importantly, we added new error codes and changed some old ones to make resolving errors faster and more intuitive. [Take a look at our release changelog for a more detailed list of updates](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.24.0).

Breaking change: `attributesToHighlight` now works on numeric values
--------------------------------------------------------------------

When you use the [`attributesToHighlight`](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/reference/api/search#attributes-to-highlight) search parameter in your query, returned documents will include a `_formatted` object containing matching query terms wrapped in `` tags.

Starting with v0.24, `attributesToHighlight` works with both strings and numeric values. This means numbers inside `_formatted` will be automatically converted to strings:

```sh
curl \
 -X POST 'http://localhost:7700/indexes/games/search' \
 -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
 --data-binary '{ "q": "101", "attributesToHighlight": ["id, title, description"] }'
```
```JSON
{
 "id": 101,
 "title": " The Wonderful 101: Remastered",
 "description": "Lead an army of 101 Wonderful Ones from around the world in this Unite Action game!",
 "_formatted": {
 "id": "101",
 "title": " The Wonderful 101: Remastered",
 "description": "Lead an army of 101 Wonderful Ones from around the world in this Unite Action game!"
 }
}
```

Telemetry page update
---------------------

By default, we collect usage data from all Meilisearch instances that do not explicitly opt out.  A few releases ago, we [added an article to our documentation website](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/what_is_meilisearch/telemetry) describing why and how we collect usage data from Meilisearch instances. With v0.24, we have expanded that article to include [an exhaustive list of all the collected data points](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/what_is_meilisearch/telemetry#exhaustive-list-of-all-collected-data).

As part of this renewed commitment to data transparency, we have also put in place a process for users to request the deletion of their collected data. Simply drop us a message at [privacy@meilisearch.com](/blog/p/49021b33-6bd0-45b6-b3d8-2b962acbaae9/privacy@meilisearch.com)ncluding your instance's UID and we'll remove everything from our records, no questions asked.

Privacy is a difficult subject in tech and there is no shortage of companies who repeatedly violate it out of carelessness or because they stand to profit from unethical data harvesting. We hope to speak more about this in an upcoming blog post, but the important thing to know is that we believe honest and constant communication about these issues is the only way to ensure your data is safe and properly handled. If at any time you feel something looks odd or suspicious, you can use the [privacy@meilisearch.com](/blog/p/49021b33-6bd0-45b6-b3d8-2b962acbaae9/privacy@meilisearch.com)ddress to contact us and hold us accountable.

Other changes
-------------

* Performance improvements related to the \`attribute\` ranking rule
* Maximum attribute size increased from 1000 to 65535 positions
* Fixed erroneous CSV Content-Type error message
* Improved error handling when importing an empty dump
* Fixed indexation performance when using mounted disks

Contributors
------------

Not going to lie, this is our favourite part of the release blog post: thanking everyone who has dedicated their time to improving Meilisearch. You're all wonderful 🤩

This month, we'd like to give a special shout out to [@Jhnbrn90](https://github.com/Jhnbrn90), [@nav1s](https://github.com/nav1s), [@nfsec](https://github.com/nfsec), [@patrickdung](https://github.com/patrickdung), [@sanders41](https://github.com/sanders41), [@CNLHC](https://github.com/CNLHC), [@fumblehool](https://github.com/fumblehool), and [@palfrey](https://github.com/palfrey).

* * *

That's it for this release. If you want more details on updates we didn't have the time to mention here, do check out our [release changelog](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.24.0).

See you next month for v0.25!

What's new in v0.24

When new people join us at Meilisearch, we love the moment when they realize, "that was real!". We put a lot of emphasis on well-being at work during the recruitment process, and we are delighted to see that it is a tangible reality for our teams on a daily basis.

We are convinced that the well-being of our team members is a prerequisite for their performance at work. And for us, this doesn't mean office foosball, but two main axes: the balance between private and personal life and the daily application of our [values](https://handbook.meilisearch.com/guide/values.html) (commitment, quality and simplicity, openness) to enhance the role of all our individual positions in the service of the collective.

It is in this context that we adopted the 4-day week in early 2020. We explain why, how, and what we get out of it.

**In the beginning, there was confinement**
-------------------------------------------

Following the announcement of the first lockdown in France in March 2020, from days spent in a common space working, eating lunch, and taking our breaks together, we switched to 100% working remotely in our respective homes.

The organization of our work time changed radically: no more transportation time, fewer interruptions, more concentration. But also less break time, less informal discussions (which are also part of the work, let's not forget it), and days that had beginnings and ends that were less and less clear.

During this period our working days became longer in spite of ourselves, mainly because we no longer had the routine of arrivals and departures from the office to serve as a reference point.

We have always been very attentive to well-being at work, and naturally, a question arose: **how do we keep our work from taking a further toll on an already bad enough situation**? To remedy the fatigue that was beginning to grow, we switched to a 4-day week, without impacting our salaries.

**How does this work in practice?**
-----------------------------------

Although contractually nothing has changed, the members of Meili work in general **from Monday to Thursday.** The hours are not more important than if we had remained at a 5-day week.

**Friday is a "free" day**. There is no obligation to work, or not to work for that matter, which can be a good way to reduce the pressure we may have about our productivity. We don't ask anyone to indicate if they worked on a Friday. The only rules that exist are:

*   No internal meetings can be scheduled on a Friday
*   When requesting time off for one or more full weeks, Friday must be included in the request

**A system based on trust**
---------------------------

Not working on Fridays is **more of a** **flexibility than a rule**. We consider that everyone is responsible for their work organization and that each member of Meili must be free to use this day as they wish.

**To put it plainly**: if you feel that you have worked enough during the week, you do not work on Friday. If you are behind and haven't done everything you needed to do, then you have Friday to keep going.

This system assumes a **relation of mutual trust**. Each member must be honest and transparent about their workload and organization, make progress reports and alert their manager if they are overloaded. Conversely, the manager must be clear about their expectations and work objectives and be able to monitor their team without micromanaging.

**The benefits for us**
-----------------------

Since the first confinement in France, life has resumed its course but we have chosen to keep the 4-day week. First of all, because working remotely has definitely become part of our way of working (we are almost totally remote), but also because we have noticed that this has not affected our productivity, quite the contrary.

It is obvious that this initiative benefits a better **life balance**. For some, this day is dedicated to personal projects such as contributing to open source projects, for others it allows them to do more sports, to rest, to take care of their young children.

In short, the temporary adjustment we had put in place to address a specific problem worked so well that we adopted it permanently. The 4-day week is a very good way for us to encourage personal development and has given very good results at Meili. It is now part of our initiatives to promote well-being at work (we promise to tell you more about the rest of them very soon).

How we implemented the 4 day work-week

It's the middle of October and more than time for an update on how Hacktoberfest is going at Meilisearch.

Shared objectives update
------------------------

[As mentioned](/blog/contribute-hacktoberfest-2021/)hen Hacktoberfest started, we're setting **shared objectives** that will **benefit everyone**. Upon reaching each objective, we will contribute to a few organizations or support people we think are doing great work.

### Open-source maintainers

We chose open-source for our project to share a high-quality search solution, accessible to all, no matter their financial means. Sharing is the basis of what we do. [Meilisearch](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch) and [milli](https://github.com/meilisearch/milli) (Meilisearch's core engine) [have](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/blob/4bacc8e47d52f95a871028b0179b3dd4e2f9682d/meilisearch-http/Cargo.toml#L77-L81) [many](https://github.com/meilisearch/milli/blob/6e3b869e6a4d33bc814ebafe80d434035139e97d/milli/Cargo.toml#L7-L50) [dependencies](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/blob/4bacc8e47d52f95a871028b0179b3dd4e2f9682d/meilisearch-http/Cargo.toml#L24-L75), and most of them are other open-source projects. Their maintainers are not all part of large companies. By supporting some of these maintainers, we're contributing to open source and helping these developers to improve the projects we depend on.

These developers are the primary maintainers of:

*   [rust-sipash](https://github.com/jedisct1/rust-siphash) - [maintainer](https://github.com/jedisct1)
*   [vergen](https://github.com/rustyhorde/vergen) - [maintainer](https://github.com/CraZySacX)
*   [pin-project](https://github.com/taiki-e/pin-project) - [maintainer](https://github.com/taiki-e)

### Climate activists

We are aware that Meilisearch has an impact on our planet. We use servers, large datasets, computational power, all of which contribute to global warming. This is something we are not comfortable with, but it is an unavoidable aspect of being a tech company.

That's why we will support three organizations tackling the challenges of climate change:

*   [WWF](https://www.worldwildlife.org/)
*   [Surfriders Foundation Europe](https://surfrider.eu/en/)
*   [Reforest'Action](https://www.reforestaction.com/en)

### Organizations that promote diversity in tech

Meilisearch grows thanks to each team member's personality, skills, and experience. Having [different perspectives](https://www.welcometothejungle.com/fr/companies/meilisearch/values) in organizations leads to better decisions and is the only way to build a long-lasting company.

We will support three organizations that strive for diversity and inclusivity in software engineering:

*   [Black Girls Code](https://wearebgc.org/)
*   [Out in Tech](https://outintech.com/)
*   [Techfugees](https://techfugees.com/fr/)

### How to unlock the perks?

There are **three stages**. We will collectively reach them if the number of contributions to [Meilisearch open-source repositories](https://github.com/search?q=topic%3Ahacktoberfest+org%3Ameilisearch&type=Repositories) is high enough. Each stage will unlock a larger amount of money for these three groups we want to support.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/PR_a742efd3bd.png)

To get the total number of contributions, we will sum up the number of Hacktoberfest-related Pull Requests (PRs) merged in Meilisearch repositories at the end of the month. And we will add the last PRs not yet merged, but tagged with the `hacktoberfest-accepted` label.

In 2020, we had **49 PRs** merged during Hacktoberfest.  
This year, every 49 PRs merged, we will reach a new stage and **add 500€** to the financial support of each of the three groups.

We are already tracking the number of contributions: on October 20th, we had 114 PRs merged since the beginning of Hacktoberfest. Stage 1 & 2 have already been reached 🎉. We'll find a stretch goal later if we're able to reach stage 3 🤞.

A new way to contribute: Awesome Meilisearch
--------------------------------------------

To help you reach these stages, we're adding a new way to increase the number of contributions. You will still have to get a PR merged, but this PR does not have to close an issue.

We recently created the [**awesome-meilisearch**](https://github.com/meilisearch/awesome-meilisearch) repository. It contains a curated list of awesome Meilisearch resources, based on the [awesome list template](https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome/blob/main/awesome.md).You can contribute to Meilisearch's Hacktoberfest goals by [adding new resources](https://github.com/meilisearch/awesome-meilisearch/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md) to this repository. These resources have to be links to awesome blog posts, tutorials, demos, guides, talks, or just about anything else that teaches people how to do cool things with Meilisearch.

All accepted contributions qualify for the shared goals count!

We're counting on you!
----------------------

Consider keeping on contributing to Meilisearch repositories once you have successfully participated in Hacktoberfest. If you increase the number of merged PRs, you will help unlock new perks that benefit everyone.

Mid-October Hacktoberfest update

This month’s release brings you geosearch and support for CSV and NDJSON payloads! You can read the full [changelog](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.23.1), but let's take a look at some of the main and breaking changes.

New feature: Geosearch
======================

Meilisearch v0.23 supports geosearch. This allows you to filter and sort results based on their location.

To start using this feature, the `_geo` field must be present in your indexed documents and added to either the `filterableAttributes` or `sortableAttributes` list, depending on the type of operation you’d like to perform.

To filter your results so that they are within a certain area, you can use the built-in `_geoRadius` filter rule. Let’s say we're in the center of Muscat and want to view restaurants that are within two kilometers:

```bash
curl  
    -X POST 'http://localhost:7700/indexes/restaurants/search' \
    --data-binary '{ 
		"filter": "_geoRadius(23.5880, 58.3829, 2000)" 
	}'
```

`_geoRadius` establishes a circular area based on a central point and a radius. It requires three parameters: `lat`, `lng`, and `distance_in_meters`—the latitude, longitude, and distance in meters respectively.

You can also sort search results in ascending or descending order based on their distance from a geographic location using `_geoPoint`_._ Let’s say you want to order documents based on how close they are to the Eiffel Tower:

```bash
curl \
    -X POST 'http://localhost:7700/indexes/restaurants/search' \
	-H 'Content-type:application/json'
	--data-binary '{
	  "sort": "_geoPoint(48.8583701,2.2922926):asc" 
	}`
```

The search response will return an extra field called `_geoDistance`. This is the distance in meters computed from the `_geoPoint` and the `_geo` coordinates of the search results.

New feature: support for NDJSON and CSV payloads
================================================

Meilisearch now accepts CSV and NDJSON along with JSON as data sources. You will now need to specify a Content-Type header for HTTP requests through tools like `curl`.

Both CSV and NDJSON offer better indexation performance, consume less RAM and are not as CPU-intensive as JSON. NDJSON is easier to validate and, unlike CSV, can handle nested structures.  

Breaking change: Content-Type headers are now mandatory
=======================================================

Since Meilisearch now supports JSON, NDJSON, and CSV, you need to specify content headers for HTTP requests through tools like `curl`.

*   `Content-Type: application/json` for JSON
*   `Content-Type: application/x-ndjson` for NDJSON
*   `Content-Type: text/csv` for CSV

An example of the JSON header when creating an index:

```bash
curl \
    -X POST 'http://localhost:7700/indexes' \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    --data-binary '{
      "uid": "movies",
      "primaryKey": "movie_id"
    }'
```

Contributors
============

A big thank you to all our contributors! We wouldn't have made it here without your support. This month, we want to send a special shout out to [@anirudhRowjee](https://github.com/anirudhRowjee), [@felixonmars](https://github.com/felixonmars), [@happysalada](https://github.com/happysalada), [@kappa-wingman](https://github.com/kappa-wingman), [@k-nasa](https://github.com/k-nasa), and [@shekhirin](https://github.com/shekhirin).

* * *

And that's all folks! Remember to check out the [changelog](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.23.1) for the full release notes and see you next month!

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