Generic Search

Sometimes you want to find an entity by a string without knowing which field it lives in. Because URL query parameters can't express an OR across fields, the Platform API provides a single search parameter that matches against several text fields at once:

label
name
description
username
firstName
lastName

Add search=<string> to any list endpoint:

# Find any device or variable referencing "vaccine"
curl -X GET 'https://api.surfact.com/api/v2.0/devices/?search=vaccine' \
  -H 'X-Auth-Token: your_token_here'

{
  "count": 1,
  "next": null,
  "previous": null,
  "results": [
    {
      "label": "vaccine-box-09",
      "name": "Vaccine Box 09",
      "description": "Insulated pharma shipper"
    }
  ]
}

Refining the match

search can be combined with a match modifier for finer control:

Modifier	Behaviour
`iexact`	Case-insensitive exact match
`contains` / `icontains`	Substring match (case-insensitive variant)
`startswith` / `istartswith`	Prefix match
`endswith` / `iendswith`	Suffix match

# Devices whose searchable fields start with "reefer"
curl -X GET 'https://api.surfact.com/api/v2.0/devices/?search__istartswith=reefer' \
  -H 'X-Auth-Token: your_token_here'

👍
Search vs. filter
Use Generic Search when you want one term matched across many fields (great for a UI search box). Use Field Filters when you need to target a specific attribute precisely.