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When you provide a value directly to a text field (without explicit operators like $phrase or $fuzzy), the search engine applies smart matching to find the most relevant results. This behavior varies based on the input format.

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Single-Word Values

For single-word searches, the engine runs multiple matching strategies and combines their scores:
  1. Exact term match (high boost): Documents containing the exact token score highest.
  2. Fuzzy match (no boost): Documents containing terms within Levenshtein distance 1 (with transpositions counting as a single edit) are included.
  3. Fuzzy prefix match (no boost): Documents containing terms that start with a fuzzy variation of the search term are included. This handles incomplete words during typing. 
{ name: "tabletop" }
This query returns results in roughly this order:
  • “tabletop” (exact match)
  • “tabeltop” (fuzzy match, 1 edit away)
  • “tabeltopping” (fuzzy prefix match, incomplete word with typos matches full term)

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Multi-Word Values

For multi-word searches, the engine runs multiple matching strategies simultaneously and combines their scores to surface the most relevant results:
  1. Exact phrase match (highest boost): Documents where all words appear adjacent and in order score highest. Searching for wireless headphones ranks documents containing “wireless headphones” as a phrase above those with the words scattered.
  2. Exact phrase match with slop (medium boost): Documents where all the query terms appear in order but not necessarily adjacent, allowing for a small number of intervening words—receive a boost. Searching for wireless headphones would rank documents containing wireless bluetooth headphones above those where the words are far apart, but below an exact phrase match (wireless headphones).
  3. Terms match (medium boost): Documents containing all or some of the search terms, regardless of position or order, receive a moderate score boost.
  4. Fuzzy matching (no boost): Documents containing terms similar to the search terms (accounting for typos) are included with a lower score.
  5. Fuzzy prefix on last word (no boost): The last word is also matched with fuzzy prefix, handling incomplete words during search-as-you-type scenarios. 
{ description: "wireless headphon" }
This query returns results in roughly this order:
  • “Premium wireless headphones with noise cancellation” (phrase match with fuzzy prefix on last word)
  • “Headphones with wireless connectivity” (all terms present, different order)
  • “Wireles headphone with long battery” (fuzzy match for typos)

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Double-Quoted Phrases

Wrapping your search value in double quotes forces exact phrase matching. The words must appear adjacent and in the exact order specified. 
{ description: "\"noise cancelling\"" }
This matches only documents containing “noise cancelling” as an exact phrase. It will NOT match:
  • “noise and cancelling” (words not adjacent)
  • “cancelling noise” (wrong order)
  • “noise-cancelling” (hyphenated, tokenized differently)
This is useful when you need precise matching without the fuzzy tolerance of smart matching.

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When to Use Explicit Operators

Smart matching works well for general search scenarios, but consider using explicit operators when you need:
  • Typo tolerance only: Use $fuzzy with specific distance settings
  • Phrase with gaps: Use $phrase with the slop parameter
  • Autocomplete: Use $contains for prefix matching on the last term
  • Pattern matching: Use $regex for regular expression patterns