$contains

The $contains operator is designed for search-as-you-type and autocomplete scenarios. It matches documents where the field contains all the specified terms, with the last term treated as a prefix.

For example, searching for "noise cancel" matches documents containing:

• “noise cancelling” (the “cancel” prefix matches “cancelling”)
• “noise cancellation”
• “noise cancelled”

This differs from a simple term search because complete words must match exactly, while only the last word can be a partial match. This makes it ideal for search boxes where users type incrementally.

Compatibility

Field Type	Supported
TEXT	Yes
U64/I64/F64	No
DATE	No
BOOL	No

Examples

TypeScript

// TODO: SDK does not support $contains operator

Redis CLI

# Matches "wireless", "wireless headphones", "wireless bluetooth headphones"
SEARCH.QUERY products '{"name": {"$contains": "wireless"}}'

# Partial last word, matches "noise cancelling", "noise cancellation"
SEARCH.QUERY products '{"description": {"$contains": "noise cancel"}}'

# Search bar autocomplete, matches "bluetooth", "blue", etc.
SEARCH.QUERY products '{"name": {"$contains": "blu"}}'