SifterSearch Documentation
The search and research intelligence behind OceanLibrary.com
SifterSearch is the backend search and AI research engine that powers OceanLibrary.com — a free interfaith library for scholars, seekers, and researchers exploring sacred texts from the world's religious traditions. Built on a multi-agent AI architecture, it goes beyond simple keyword matching to understand the deeper meaning behind your questions.
What Makes SifterSearch Different
Traditional search engines find words. SifterSearch finds meaning.
- Semantic Understanding — Understands concepts, not just keywords. Search for "detachment from material things" and find passages about spiritual freedom, even if they don't use those exact words.
- Cross-Language Search — Semantic search operates across language boundaries. An English query finds Arabic passages; a Persian query finds English ones. Learn how →
- RAG-Enhanced Retrieval — Advanced query disambiguation, hypothetical passage expansion (HyPE), and cross-encoder reranking surface the most relevant passages — not just the most popular ones. See the strategy →
- Cross-Tradition Discovery — Explore how different religions approach the same themes. Find connections across Baha'i writings, Islamic texts, and Buddhist sutras.
- AI-Powered Analysis — Each search result is scored, summarized, and highlighted by AI to show you why it's relevant to your query.
- Scholarly Focus — Built for serious study with proper citations, source attribution, and access to original texts.
Core Features
Hybrid Search
Combines traditional keyword search with semantic vector search for best-of-both-worlds results. Find exact quotes when you need them, or explore conceptually related passages.
Advanced RAG Pipeline
Beyond basic retrieval, SifterSearch uses a multi-step enhancement strategy: query disambiguation resolves ambiguous terms, HyPE generates hypothetical ideal passages to improve semantic matching, and a cross-encoder reranks results for precision. Full strategy details →
Multi-Agent System
Under the hood, specialized AI agents collaborate to understand your query, design search strategies, analyze results, and present findings. Learn more about our agents →
Comprehensive Library
46,503 documents and 4.9 million passages spanning 12 religious traditions in 8 languages. Explore the library →
Developer API
Build your own applications on top of SifterSearch with our public REST API. Full AI analysis, filtering, and rate limiting included. View API docs →
Quick Start
- Ask a question — Type naturally: "What does Baha'u'llah say about justice?"
- Review results — Each passage shows its relevance score and key phrases highlighted
- Explore deeper — Click any result to see the full context and document
- Refine your search — Filter by religion, collection, or language
Architecture Overview
Getting Help
- Questions? — Use the search bar to ask Sifter directly
- Bug reports — GitHub Issues
- Feature requests — We'd love to hear your ideas