zulip/templates/zerver/api/construct-narrow.md

Construct a narrow

A narrow is a set of filters for Zulip messages, that can be based on many different factors (like sender, stream, topic, search keywords, etc.). the Zulip API (espec in the API for fetching messages).

It is simplest top explain the algorithm for encoding a search as a narrow using a single example. Consider the following search query (written as it would be entered in the Zulip webapp's search box). It filters for messages sent on stream announce, not sent by iago@zulip.com, and containing the phrase cool sunglasses:

stream:announce -sender:iago@zulip.com cool sunglasses

This query would be JSON-encoded for use in the Zulip API using JSON as a list of simple objects, as follows:

[
    {
        "operator": "stream",
        "operand": "announce"
    },
    {
        "operator": "sender",
        "operand": "iago@zulip.com",
        "negated": true
    },
    {
        "operator": "search",
        "operand": "cool sunglasses"
    }
]

The full set of search/narrowing options supported by the Zulip API is documented in the Zulip Help Center article on search.