Installation

The initial npm preview uses the next dist-tag. The preview package list names the packages included in this release. The Algolia adapter remains in development.

Scout is three installs at most: the core, one adapter for the engine you search, and the TanStack Query package when you want caching handled for you.

pnpm add @priemskiyyy/scout@next @priemskiyyy/scout-typesense@next typesense

The core carries the index declaration, the search builder, the filter AST and the result types. The adapter carries the translation onto one engine. The engine's own SDK is a peer dependency that you install and own, because Scout never opens a connection or holds a client of its own.

The packages

Package	What it is	Peer dependencies
@priemskiyyy/scout	The core: indexes, builder, filters, types	vitest (optional, only for the testing subpath)
@priemskiyyy/scout-typesense	Typesense adapter	@priemskiyyy/scout, typesense 3
@priemskiyyy/scout-algolia	Algolia adapter	@priemskiyyy/scout, algoliasearch 5
@priemskiyyy/scout-meilisearch	Meilisearch adapter	@priemskiyyy/scout, meilisearch 0.50 or newer
@priemskiyyy/scout-mongodb	MongoDB Search adapter, server only	@priemskiyyy/scout, mongodb 7
@priemskiyyy/scout-elasticsearch	Elasticsearch adapter, server only	@priemskiyyy/scout, @elastic/elasticsearch 9
@priemskiyyy/scout-opensearch	OpenSearch adapter, server only	@priemskiyyy/scout, @opensearch-project/opensearch 3
@priemskiyyy/scout-orama	Orama adapter, in process	@priemskiyyy/scout, @orama/orama 3
@priemskiyyy/scout-minisearch	MiniSearch adapter, in process	@priemskiyyy/scout, minisearch 7, 7.2 to browse
@priemskiyyy/scout-fuse	Fuse.js adapter, in process	@priemskiyyy/scout, fuse.js >=7.5 <8
@priemskiyyy/scout-http	Your JSON search endpoint	@priemskiyyy/scout
@priemskiyyy/scout-tanstack-query	Query options built from a search	@priemskiyyy/scout, @tanstack/query-core 5

Choose an adapter compares what each engine can actually do behind the contract.

A schema library

An index validates every document it returns against a schema, so you need one that implements Standard Schema version 1. Zod, Valibot and ArkType all do.

pnpm add zod

Scout reads the document type from the schema at compile time and calls the validator at runtime. It never introspects a schema, and it only accepts a synchronous answer: a validator that returns a promise is treated as a validation failure rather than awaited, because a page of fifty hits would otherwise await fifty times. Indexes covers what that means for the schema you write.

Runtime and tooling

• Node 22.18 or newer for the toolchain. The published packages are ESM only, with types, then import, then default in every exports entry, so a bundler, Node and a React Native Jest resolver all find the same file.
• TypeScript 5.5 or newer with strict on. Most of what Scout gives you is in the types: filter operators inferred per field, sort and profile names as literal unions, facet and highlight keys on the result. Without strict the inference still works, but the compile errors that make a provider swap safe get weaker.
• No runtime dependencies in the core, in the TanStack package or in any adapter. An adapter imports no provider SDK, not even its types, so one build serves the browser, Node and React Native, and the version of the SDK you installed is the one that runs.

Subpaths

Three subpaths sit beside the core. One is for adapter authors, and two are for tests and never reach a production bundle:

import {
  createHighlightMarkers,
  matchesFilter,
  splitHighlight,
} from "@priemskiyyy/scout/adapter";
import { createMockSearchAdapter } from "@priemskiyyy/scout/mock";
import { testSearchAdapter } from "@priemskiyyy/scout/testing";

./adapter holds the helpers an adapter builds on: per search highlight markers, splitting marked text into safe parts, and the reference filter matcher an in-process engine runs over its whole match set. ./mock is a deliberately badly behaved adapter for testing an application against held answers, out-of-order completion, ignored aborts and refusals. ./testing is the conformance suite every adapter runs, described in writing an adapter. The two test subpaths declare vitest as an optional peer dependency, so installing Scout without vitest is not a warning unless you import them.

Next: getting started runs one search end to end.