Lessons from implementing global code search on GitLab.com

What this post added

This post details efforts to improve Elasticsearch integration for global code search on GitLab.com. Key technical challenges and attempted solutions include reducing Elasticsearch index size by investigating force merges (abandoned due to performance degradation), adjusting Edge NGram sizes for blobs (potential 7-15% savings, pending validation), and exploring separate indexes (no space savings but improved indexing speed). Administration capabilities are being enhanced with better cluster visibility, graceful recovery from indexing failures, selective/progressive indexing, making code indexing optional, and sharding Elasticsearch per group.