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Analysis & spreadsheets48k · #2366

azure-search-documents-dotnet

Helps your agent build advanced search applications in Azure. It allows implementing text, vector, and hybrid search to find information.

What it does

This tool helps create search applications. You can use it to find information within large amounts of data, like on a website or database.

When to use it

  • ✓When you need to build a search system for a website.
  • ✓When developing an application that needs to search documents.
  • ✓To implement full-text or similarity search on data.

Example of what to ask your AI

“How can I set up document search for my website?”

Want more? Open the sections below.

How to use

The easiest way: copy the message below and paste it into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any AI. It reads the skill and follows the instructions.

Skill link

https://github.com/sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills/blob/main/plugins/agentic-awesome-skills-claude/skills/azure-search-documents-dotnet/SKILL.md

Ready-to-paste message

Use this skill to help me: https://github.com/sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills/blob/main/plugins/agentic-awesome-skills-claude/skills/azure-search-documents-dotnet/SKILL.md Read the SKILL.md file at that link and follow its instructions for my task.
How it works

You add this tool to your .NET programming project. It connects to the Azure AI Search service, allowing you to define how data is organized and how search works.

Installation

Easiest way: copy the skill link and paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor asking it to follow the instructions.

In the terminal (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor), in your project folder:

npx skills add sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills --skill azure-search-documents-dotnet

Or download just the file:

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills/main/plugins/agentic-awesome-skills-claude/skills/azure-search-documents-dotnet/SKILL.md -o SKILL.md
Technical content (original SKILL.md)

Original text by the author, straight from GitHub.

Bundled upstream support

Supporting files are included at skill-relative paths. See UPSTREAM-NOTICE.md for their pinned sources, licenses, hashes, and import changes.

Azure.Search.Documents (.NET)

Build search applications with full-text, vector, semantic, and hybrid search capabilities.

Installation

dotnet add package Azure.Search.Documents
dotnet add package Azure.Identity

Current Versions: Stable v11.7.0, Preview v11.8.0-beta.1

Environment Variables

SEARCH_ENDPOINT=https://<search-service>.search.windows.net
SEARCH_INDEX_NAME=<index-name>
# For API key auth (not recommended for production)
SEARCH_API_KEY=<api-key>

Authentication

DefaultAzureCredential (preferred):

using Azure.Identity;
using Azure.Search.Documents;

var credential = new DefaultAzureCredential();
var client = new SearchClient(
    new Uri(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("SEARCH_ENDPOINT")),
    Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("SEARCH_INDEX_NAME"),
    credential);

API Key:

using Azure;
using Azure.Search.Documents;

var credential = new AzureKeyCredential(
    Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("SEARCH_API_KEY"));
var client = new SearchClient(
    new Uri(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("SEARCH_ENDPOINT")),
    Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("SEARCH_INDEX_NAME"),
    credential);

Client Selection

Client Purpose
SearchClient Query indexes, upload/update/delete documents
SearchIndexClient Create/manage indexes, synonym maps
SearchIndexerClient Manage indexers, skillsets, data sources

Index Creation

Using FieldBuilder (Recommended)

using Azure.Search.Documents.Indexes;
using Azure.Search.Documents.Indexes.Models;

// Define model with attributes
public class Hotel
{
    [SimpleField(IsKey = true, IsFilterable = true)]
    public string HotelId { get; set; }

    [SearchableField(IsSortable = true)]
    public string HotelName { get; set; }

    [SearchableField(AnalyzerName = LexicalAnalyzerName.EnLucene)]
    public string Description { get; set; }

    [SimpleField(IsFilterable = true, IsSortable = true, IsFacetable = true)]
    public double? Rating { get; set; }

    [VectorSearchField(VectorSearchDimensions = 1536, VectorSearchProfileName = "vector-profile")]
    public ReadOnlyMemory<float>? DescriptionVector { get; set; }
}

// Create index
var indexClient = new SearchIndexClient(endpoint, credential);
var fieldBuilder = new FieldBuilder();
var fields = fieldBuilder.Build(typeof(Hotel));

var index = new SearchIndex("hotels")
{
    Fields = fields,
    VectorSearch = new VectorSearch
    {
        Profiles = { new VectorSearchProfile("vector-profile", "hnsw-algo") },
        Algorithms = { new HnswAlgorithmConfiguration("hnsw-algo") }
    }
};

await indexClient.CreateOrUpdateIndexAsync(index);

Manual Field Definition

var index = new SearchIndex("hotels")
{
    Fields =
    {
        new SimpleField("hotelId", SearchFieldDataType.String) { IsKey = true, IsFilterable = true },
        new SearchableField("hotelName") { IsSortable = true },
        new SearchableField("description") { AnalyzerName = LexicalAnalyzerName.EnLucene },
        new SimpleField("rating", SearchFieldDataType.Double) { IsFilterable = true, IsSortable = true },
        new SearchField("descriptionVector", SearchFieldDataType.Collection(SearchFieldDataType.Single))
        {
            VectorSearchDimensions = 1536,
            VectorSearchProfileName = "vector-profile"
        }
    }
};

Document Operations

var searchClient = new SearchClient(endpoint, indexName, credential);

// Upload (add new)
var hotels = new[] { new Hotel { HotelId = "1", HotelName = "Hotel A" } };
await searchClient.UploadDocumentsAsync(hotels);

// Merge (update existing)
await searchClient.MergeDocumentsAsync(hotels);

// Merge or Upload (upsert)
await searchClient.MergeOrUploadDocumentsAsync(hotels);

// Delete
await searchClient.DeleteDocumentsAsync("hotelId", new[] { "1", "2" });

// Batch operations
var batch = IndexDocumentsBatch.Create(
    IndexDocumentsAction.Upload(hotel1),
    IndexDocumentsAction.Merge(hotel2),
    IndexDocumentsAction.Delete(hotel3));
await searchClient.IndexDocumentsAsync(batch);

Search Patterns

Basic Search

var options = new SearchOptions
{
    Filter = "rating ge 4",
    OrderBy = { "rating desc" },

…
FAQ

What is Azure AI Search?

It's a cloud service from Microsoft that lets you add advanced search capabilities to applications.

What are 'full-text', 'vector', 'semantic', and 'hybrid' search?

These are different ways to search information: full-text searches for exact words, vector search finds similar items based on meaning, semantic search understands context, and hybrid search combines multiple methods.

Do I need to know a lot about programming to use this?

Basic knowledge of .NET programming is recommended, as this tool is an SDK (software development kit) for programmers.

Details

Original description by the author

Azure AI Search SDK for .NET (Azure.Search.Documents). Use for building search applications with full-text, vector, semantic, and hybrid search.

repo: sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills

Popularity

GitHub stars
48k
Ranking position
#2366
License
MIT
Updated
10/15/2026

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