[GS] Kibana Global Navigation/Search Bar Terms

[stephmilovic]

Describe the feature:
When I use the global navigation search for the overall categories (Observability, Security, Kibana, Enterprise Search), I don't get the results I expect:

I feel like these search terms should either display the subpages of the category or the overview page for the category.

Describe a specific use case for the feature:
Searching for Observability pages in the global nav currently returns no results. It should!

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-core-ui (Team:Core UI)

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-platform (Team:Platform)

[myasonik]

I wonder if this could tie into either #76778 (each page gets a default keyword of their category?) or #72680 (is each feature group name searchable?)

[ryankeairns]

My initial reaction is "Yes, this makes sense, we should do this.". Next, I contemplate if we ought to manage this in some central fashion (to avoid conflicts) or do we embrace the federated approach we have in place and simply allow authors to start claiming aliases/keywords in their registry definitions (this is essentially what #76778 is about).

If we're comfortable with the latter (which I think we are?), do we simply need to set some level of guidelines or expectations and encourage teams to just go forth?

cc:/ @alexfrancoeur

[pgayvallet]

Returning applications of the categories matching the current search term could be done quite easily, and seems reasonable. However:

• note that this solution would display ALL the apps from the category, not only the overview. (so we need to decide if that's what we want)

• we would need to think a little about sorting/scoring, as apps can now be returned because either their name OR their category's name matches.

• Also (probably minor but still) we would not be highlighting the matching term in the app's name, as it would match the category instead. Not sure the component allows to highlight on displayed 'meta', @myasonik?

Other option, as suggested by Ryan, would be to consider that issue part of #76778 and let solutions implements their own keywords.

[ryankeairns]

Thanks for explaining those potential side effects. My initial reaction is that this path will produce an undesirable UX where search becomes less predictable.

If I had $1 left to spend on the next feature, I keep coming back to the search syntax which seems to improve (and broaden) search in numerous ways. It could go so far as type: or even meta: (or description:), if so desired. This style of approach feels more intentional and predictable.

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/appex-sharedux (Team:SharedUX)

[rshen91]

Tested on main - no longer an issue