People auto-suggestion

Introduction

The People Auto-suggestion endpoint returns the skills that start with what someone has typed, most common first. It returns values only, never a profile.

It is made for products: use it to offer auto-suggestion in a search box of your own interface, then send the value your user picks to the skills filter of People search or of its free count.

This endpoint costs 0 credits, but each call still counts toward your rate limits.

Authorization

Request body

A value matches when it starts with query, spaces included: machine l returns machine learning, and script returns scripting but not javascript.

Any other field, an empty query or a limit out of range returns HTTP 422 and names the expected value.

Response structure

Values come in lowercase and without accents, as they are held for matching. The skills filter ignores case, so you can restyle a value for display and still send it.

Build a search box

A few habits keep the box fast and your rate limit intact:

• Call from your server. The call needs your API key, which must never reach a browser.
• Wait for a pause in the typing. Calling about 200 ms after the last key sends one request for a burst of keys.
• Start at two characters. One letter matches too much to help.
• Cancel the previous request when a new one starts, so a late answer never replaces a newer one.
• Keep the answers for the session: the same prefix returns the same values.
• Let people add what they typed. An empty list only means that no value starts this way, so a person can still search on their own wording.

Code examples

curl -X POST https://api.reversecontact.com/v2/search/people/auto-suggestion \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "field": "skills",
    "query": "pyth",
    "limit": 5
  }'

import ReverseContact from "@reverse-contact/sdk";

const client = new ReverseContact({ apiKey: process.env.RC_API_KEY });

const result = await client.search.peopleAutoSuggestion({
  field: "skills",
  query: "pyth",
  limit: 5
});
console.log(result.data.suggestions?.map((suggestion) => suggestion.value));

import os

from reversecontact import ReverseContact

with ReverseContact(api_key=os.environ["RC_API_KEY"]) as client:
    result = client.search.people_auto_suggestion(
        field="skills",
        query="pyth",
        limit=5,
    )
    if result.data is not None and result.data.suggestions is not None:
        print([suggestion.value for suggestion in result.data.suggestions])

Example response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "object": "search_auto_suggestions",
    "entity": "person",
    "field": "skills",
    "suggestions": [
      { "value": "python programming language" },
      { "value": "python" },
      { "value": "python langage de programmation" },
      { "value": "python programmiersprache" }
    ]
  },
  "error": null,
  "quotas": {
    "creditsConsumed": 0,
    "workspace": {
      "id": "ws_abc123",
      "credits": { "total": 10000, "used": 4521, "left": 5479 }
    }
  },
  "metadata": {
    "requestId": "req_a1u2t3o4",
    "executionTimeMs": 170
  }
}