About SifterSearch
An AI-powered search tool for the Interfaith supplemental library.
About This Project
SifterSearch is a private project by Chad Jones to help organize and search the Interfaith supplemental library used in OceanLibrary.com.
At its center is Jafar — the chat assistant who serves as research companion and conversational interlocutor. Jafar is grounded in the actual library corpus rather than in general training data, and is meant to engage with questions about faith, scripture, and meaning in the spirit of a knowledgeable friend rather than a search engine. Jafar's voice and behavior are themselves under public iteration — read the long-form dialogues with the Ocean to see how he handles deep questions, and the methodology page for how the work is evaluated.
Access is by invitation from participants and by approval only.
Features
Hybrid Search
Combines keyword matching with semantic understanding to find relevant passages even when exact words differ.
Multi-Tradition Library
Search across scriptures, commentaries, and scholarly works from diverse religious and philosophical traditions.
Conversational Interface
Ask questions in natural language and receive contextual responses with citations from primary sources.
Scholarly Sources
Access academic commentaries and historical analyses alongside primary religious texts.
Meet the Team
Behind every search is a team of AI agents working together. When you ask a question, Sifter greets you and coordinates the response. Researcher plans the optimal search strategy, then Analyzer scores and highlights the most relevant passages.
Meanwhile, Memory recalls your past conversations to personalize responses. Need audio? Narrator speaks the sacred texts aloud. Want elegant prose? Translator renders text in beautiful, elevated English.
And behind the scenes, Librarian curates and grows our collection, ensuring every text is properly cataloged and discoverable. And Transcriber turns talks and lectures into searchable text.
Sifter
Orchestrator
The friendly face of SifterSearch. Sifter receives your questions, determines the best approach, coordinates the other agents, and presents results in a warm, scholarly manner. Think of Sifter as your personal research librarian.
Learn more →Researcher
Search Strategy
Plans optimal search strategies based on query complexity. Simple questions get fast lookups; complex comparisons trigger multi-query investigations across traditions.
Learn more →Analyzer
Re-ranking & Summarization
Re-ranks results by true relevance, identifies the most important sentences, highlights key phrases, and generates direct, concise summaries.
Learn more →Translator
Shoghi Effendi Style
Renders text in the elevated, dignified English prose style of Shoghi Effendi, using Victorian vocabulary, poetic rhythm, and rich spiritual imagery.
Learn more →Narrator
Audio Narration
Generates high-quality audio narration via ElevenLabs, with a pronunciation dictionary covering 80+ sacred terms from Baha'i, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian traditions.
Learn more →Memory
User Context
Stores and retrieves relevant context from past conversations, enabling personalized responses and continuity across sessions.
Learn more →Librarian
Library Management
Manages document ingestion, metadata enrichment, duplicate detection, and collection curation to keep the library organized and comprehensive.
Learn more →Transcriber
Audio/Video to Text
Converts talks, lectures, and classes into searchable Markdown documents using Whisper AI, making spoken wisdom accessible alongside written texts.
Learn more →Technology
The hybrid search engine combines multiple AI technologies:
- • Semantic search powered by OpenAI embeddings for meaning-based matching
- • Keyword search via Meilisearch for precise text matching
- • AI re-ranking to surface the most relevant results
- • ElevenLabs TTS for high-quality audio narration
Developer API
Build your own applications with the SifterSearch Public API. Access hybrid search, AI-powered analysis, and our multi-tradition library programmatically.