Implement a search cutoff

[irevoire]

Related product team resources: PRD (internal only)
Related product discussion:
Related spec: WIP

Motivation

We want to ensure that no search requests run for too long.
The most complex part of the code that can take an unrestricted amount of time right now is the sorting of the results.
Thus, a new mechanism is being introduced in the engine that stops the search requests from sorting more results and returns straight away what has already been sorted.
Then, it must still be highlighted, made into a valid object, and returned to the end user.

Usage

By default, the sorting process of all search requests is stopped after 150ms.
This can be configured through the PUT /indexes/:index_uid/settings/search-cutoff route by sending the number of milliseconds that meilisearch is allowed to spend sorting the results.

The only way to know if a search request was stopped early is to request the score details.

Detailed usage available here

TODO

• merge changes into main
• Update the spec
• Add an example of the search details

Reminders when modifying the Setting API

• Ensure the new setting route is at least tested by the test_setting_routes macro
• Ensure Analytics are fully implemented
  • /settings/my-new-setting configurated in the make_setting_routes macro
  • global /settings route configurated in the update_all function
• Ensure the dump serializing is consistent with the /settings route serializing, e.g., enums case can be different (camelCase in route and PascalCase in the dump)

Impacted teams

@meilisearch/docs-team

[curquiza]

A new parameter probably coming so pinging @meilisearch/integration-team here