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.). Narrows are used in various places in the the Zulip API (most importantly, in the API for fetching messages).

It is simplest to 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 web app's search box). It filters for messages sent to stream announce, not sent by iago@zulip.com, and containing the words cool and 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 Zulip help center article on searching for messages documents the majority of the search/narrow options supported by the Zulip API.

Note that many narrows, including all that lack a stream or streams operator, search the current user's personal message history. See searching shared history for details.

Narrows that use IDs

The near and id operators, documented in the help center, use message IDs for their operands.

• near:12345: Search messages around the message with ID 12345.
• id:12345: Search for only message with ID 12345.

There are a few additional narrow/search options (new in Zulip 2.1) that use either stream IDs or user IDs that are not documented in the help center because they are primarily useful to API clients:

• stream:1234: Search messages sent to the stream with ID 1234.
• sender:1234: Search messages sent by user ID 1234.
• pm-with:1234: Search the private message conversation between you and user ID 1234.
• pm-with:1234,5678: Search the private message conversation between you, user ID 1234, and user ID 5678.
• group-pm-with:1234: Search all group private messages that include you and user ID 1234.

The operands for these search options must be encoded either as an integer ID or a JSON list of integer IDs. For example, to query messages sent by a user 1234 to a PM thread with yourself, user 1234, and user 5678, the correct JSON-encoded query is:

[
    {
        "operator": "pm-with",
        "operand": [1234, 5678]
    },
    {
        "operator": "sender",
        "operand": 1234
    }
]