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Guides Using radars

Search syntax

Every filter the On My Radar search box understands, how to combine and negate them, how dates work, what free text matches, and a list of worked examples.

Updated October 30, 2026 · Checked against On My Radar build 2c4905d

One search box looks across every radar you can read. After reading this page you can mix ordinary words with filters such as in:, from: and tag:, exclude things, narrow by date, and find finished work that has aged out of a radar.

The search box sits at the top of every screen. Its placeholder reads "Search all radars…". Press / to jump to it (see Keyboard shortcuts).

The search screen for the query 'tag:launch is:active', showing the two filter chips, a count of 7 matches across 7 radars, and matching blips with the radar each belongs to and any due dates.
  • As you type, a dropdown shows up to five matching blips, with the matched words marked. Use the arrow keys to pick one and press Enter to open it, or press Enter with none picked to open the full results.
  • The results screen is titled "Search". Under the title it says how many radars and blips it covers, how many matched, and whether the order is "by best match" or "by most recent".
  • With an empty box, the Search screen lists every filter with an example. Click an example to add it to your query.
  • The box has a "Clear search" button.
  • Search only ever covers radars you can already read, including radars you reach through a shared topic. A filter can narrow that set. It can never widen it.

Note: If you search from inside a radar, that radar's matches are listed first under "In (radar name)", followed by "Other radars". Everything else you can read is still searched.

What plain words match

Words that are not filters are matched against four parts of a blip, weighted in this order: the title, the tags, the link, then the body. For a captured email, your own notes on the email are searched along with the body.

  • Several words must all match.
  • A "quoted phrase" matches exactly.
  • or between words matches either one. For example budget or forecast.
  • A leading minus excludes a word: meeting -budget.
  • Common English word endings are ignored, so a search for planning also finds plan.
  • Comments are not searched. To find blips that have comments, use has:comment.
  • With words in the query, results are ranked by how well they match, and a title that contains your phrase beats a body that happens to use the same words. With no words, only filters, results come back newest first, and pinned blips are listed first. When there are words, pinning does not change the order.

The filters

A filter is a field name, a colon and a value, with no space after the colon: tag:bug. Field names are not case sensitive. If a value contains a space, put it in double quotes: in:"Design notes".

There are twelve fields.

  • in: Limits results to one radar. You can give the radar's name, its slug or its id. A name is matched exactly first. If no radar has exactly that name or slug, every radar whose name or slug contains your text is used. So in:design can mean both "Design notes" and "Design system". The filter chip under the box shows which radars it used. in: cannot name a smart radar.
  • topic: Limits results to the radars currently in a topic you can read. Matching works like in:. Radars added to the topic later are included automatically. Being able to see a topic never gives you access to radars in it that you cannot otherwise read.
  • from: Only blips captured by that person. Use a name, an email address or an id. You can only name people you share a radar with.
  • tag: Only blips carrying the tag. The value is cleaned up the same way a #hashtag is, so tag:"Side Projects" and tag:side-projects mean the same tag, and a leading # is ignored.
  • is: Takes nine values:
    • The five triage states: inbox, active, later, done, dropped.
    • pinned and unpinned.
    • archived and live. Archived means a finished blip that has aged out of its radar. See Archive and Dropped.
  • has: Takes link, attachment or comment. Other spellings work too: url for link, file or files for attachment, comments, reply or replies for comment. has:link is true for a blip with a stored link, and also when the body or your email notes contain a web address that starts with http:// or https://, or a mailto: address.
  • kind: The kind of blip: note, link, image, file, essay, quote or task.
  • template: Only radars on that template, across every topic: stream, kanban, microblog, reading, decisions, architecture, discussion or helpdesk.
  • after: Blips captured on or after a date or span.
  • before: Blips captured before a date or span. The moment you give is not included.
  • touched: Blips that were edited, or that received a new comment, since a date or span.
  • stale: Blips with no edits and no new comments since a date or span.

For touched: and stale:, activity means edits to the blip and new comments. Reactions and edits to an existing comment do not count.

There is no filter for due dates, and no filter for a template's lane (such as "In progress"). Lanes only mean something inside one radar's template, so they are left out of the search box.

Dates

before:, after:, touched: and stale: accept the same forms:

  • A day: 2026-08-01. A month: 2026-08. A year: 2026. A month or year counts as the first day of it.
  • A span counted back from now: 7d (days), 2w (weeks), 3m (months), 1y (years).
  • today or yesterday.

All dates are UTC. A day means midnight UTC at the start of that day, which may fall on the evening before in the Americas. 3m means three months, not three minutes. The filter chip shows the date the search resolved to.

Typing helpers

  • Type in:, topic: or from: and up to six matching radars, topics or people are offered. Prefix matches are listed first.
  • Type has:, is:, kind: or template: and the allowed values are offered.
  • Press Tab to take the highlighted suggestion. Press the arrow keys and then Enter to take one. Plain Enter runs the search. Names with a space are put in quotes for you.

Quoting, alternatives and negation

  • Quotes keep a value together: from:"Ada Lovelace". A pipe or colon inside quotes is literal.
  • Alternatives: put | between values to mean "either". tag:bug|techdebt matches blips with either tag. is:done|dropped matches either state. Outside quotes, a pipe always separates alternatives.
  • Negation: put a minus in front of a filter, or write not: before it. -tag:bug and not:tag:bug both exclude blips with that tag. Negation covers the whole alternative group, so -tag:bug|techdebt excludes both tags.
  • A plain not: with no field after it is reported as a problem.
  • Unknown prefixes are treated as ordinary words, not as mistakes. A search for https://example.com or note: call back searches for those words.

How filters combine

Different fields always intersect: tag:bug from:ada means bug-tagged blips by Ada. For the same field written more than once:

  • in:, topic:, from:, kind: and template: union their values. in:Ideas in:Reading searches both radars.
  • Triage states in is: also union. is:done is:dropped matches either.
  • tag: and has: intersect. tag:bug tag:urgent needs both tags.
  • For pinned, archived and for each date field, the last positive filter you write wins.
  • Negative filters all apply together.

The search results include a disclosure called "How these filters combine" with the same rules.

Archived results

Unlike a radar's own screen, search includes archived blips by default, and marks them "archived". Add is:live to leave them out, or is:archived to see only them.

When a filter does not work

  • If a filter names a radar, topic or person that does not exist or that you cannot read, the search does not run without it. You get "That filter matched nothing", the reason in a warning line, and an empty result. The message is the same whether the radar is missing or private.
  • If a known field has a value it cannot accept, such as is:blue, a warning explains it. Buttons under the warning offer the valid values; click one to fix the query. Until you fix it, the search shows "That filter matched nothing" and returns no results. This happens for any filter problem, not only for a missing radar.
  • Limits: the whole query can be 500 characters, one filter value can be 160 characters, and each field can appear up to 32 times with up to 32 alternatives per filter. Going over the filter limits reports a problem rather than ignoring filters silently. A query longer than 500 characters is refused.

Worked examples

  • roadmap finds blips mentioning roadmap, best match first.
  • "launch plan" in:"Design notes" finds that exact phrase in one radar.
  • tag:bug is:active finds active blips tagged bug.
  • tag:bug|techdebt -in:Noise finds blips with either tag, outside the radar named Noise.
  • from:ada after:7d has:link finds links Ada captured in the last week.
  • meeting -budget finds blips about meetings that do not mention budget.
  • budget or forecast finds blips with either word.
  • stale:30d is:active finds active blips untouched for thirty days.
  • touched:2w kind:essay finds essays edited or discussed in the last two weeks.
  • topic:"Product work" is:pinned finds pinned blips across a topic.
  • after:2026-09 before:2026-10 finds blips captured in September 2026 UTC.
  • has:attachment -tag:draft finds attachments not tagged draft.
  • template:helpdesk is:archived finds resolved or declined client requests that have aged out.
  • in:"Board" is:archived shows what has aged out of a radar named Board.
  • is:done is:dropped before:1y finds finished or dropped blips captured over a year ago.
  • has:comment is:live finds discussed blips that are still on their radars.

There are two ways to keep a view, and they are different tools.

  • A smart radar is a saved set of tags. From a tag page (click any #tag), choose "Create smart radar" and fill in "New smart radar": a name, the tags under "Tags it gathers", and "Match" set to "Any of these tags" or "Every one of these tags". Click "Create". It appears under "Smart" in the sidebar and gathers matching blips from every radar you can read. It holds no blips and you cannot capture into it. It does not store a search box query. An agent can create a smart radar that also limits states, kinds, source radars and words, but a tag is always required.
  • A live query on a dashboard keeps any query from this page. Add a widget, choose "Live query" and enter the query. See Dashboards.

Searching with an agent

Agents use the same grammar through the search_blips tool, and search_suggestions lists the radars, topics and people they may name. Depending on your plan, MCP access may be limited. See MCP reference.

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