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Define and Execute Search Queries in Elasticsearch

Knowing how to collect, parse, enrich, and index data in Elasticsearch is important, but knowing how to ask the data precise questions is even more crucial. After all, you can't spell "Elasticsearch" without "search!" Whether you are using Elasticsearch for site search, product search, operational analytics, or business intelligence, knowing how to formulate complex search queries is vital to deriving value from all that data you've managed to collect, parse, enrich, and index. In this hands-on lab, you will complete the following tasks: * Search for a specific term within a field * Apply a search filter to reduce the searchable data set * Sort the resulting data * Highlight the search term in the results * Paginate the search results

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Path Info

Level

Advanced

Duration

3h 0m

Last updated

Jul 12, 2025

Challenge

Create a search query that meets the requirements of Query 1.

Use the Kibana console tool to execute the following:

GET shakespeare/_search
{
  "size": 20,
  "sort": [
    {
      "play_name": {
        "order": "asc"
      }
    },
    {
      "line_id": {
        "order": "asc"
      }
    }
  ], 
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": [
        {
          "term": {
            "type.keyword": {
              "value": "scene"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "match": {
            "text_entry": "london"
          }
        }
      ],
      "should": [
        {
          "term": {
            "play_name": {
              "value": "Henry VI Part 1"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "term": {
            "play_name": {
              "value": "Henry VI Part 2"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "term": {
            "play_name": {
              "value": "Henry VI Part 3"
            }
          }
        }
      ],
      "minimum_should_match": 1
    }
  }
}

Challenge

Create a search query that meets the requirements of Query 2.

Use the Kibana console tool to execute the following:

GET shakespeare/_search
{
  "from": 0,
  "size": 5,
  "highlight": {
    "pre_tags": ["&lt;strong&gt;"],
    "post_tags": ["&lt;/strong&gt;"],
    "fields": {
      "text_entry": {}
    }
  },
  "sort": [
    {
      "_score": {
        "order": "desc"
      }
    },
    {
      "line_id": {
        "order": "asc"
      }
    }
  ],
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": [
        {
          "match": {
            "text_entry": "death"
          }
        }
      ],
      "filter": {
        "term": {
          "play_name": "Hamlet"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Author

Pluralsight Skills

Pluralsight Skills gives leaders confidence they have the skills needed to execute technology strategy. Technology teams can benchmark expertise across roles, speed up release cycles and build reliable, secure products. By leveraging our expert content, skill assessments and one-of-a-kind analytics, keep up with the pace of change, put the right people on the right projects and boost productivity. It's the most effective path to developing tech skills at scale.

What's a lab?

Hands-on Labs are real environments created by industry experts to help you learn. These environments help you gain knowledge and experience, practice without compromising your system, test without risk, destroy without fear, and let you learn from your mistakes. Hands-on Labs: practice your skills before delivering in the real world.

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We will provide the credentials and environment necessary for you to practice right within your browser.

Guided walkthrough

Follow along with the author’s guided walkthrough and build something new in your provided environment!

Did you know?

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