Static-site search with Pagefind

The biggest pain of a static site is search: no server, how do you search? The answer might be Pagefind.

Clever idea

After the build, Pagefind scans the generated HTML, builds an index, and emits static files. When a user searches, the index loads in the browser — no backend at all.

npm run build   # astro build && pagefind --site dist

Experience

• Chinese word segmentation works
• Hit words are highlighted in results
• Works out of the box after build; dev mode shows a friendly fallback

For a personal blog, it’s the highest-leverage search option, bar none.