Improve search findability for providers and environment variables

[CamSoper]

Improves search discoverability for Alibaba Cloud provider and environment variables based on production testing.

Changes

• Added synonym: aliyun ↔ alicloud (only new synonym needed after testing)
• Added search keywords to environment variables documentation page with boost
• Added promotion rule for searches containing PULUMI_ (uppercase)

Testing Results

Production testing showed:

• ✅ aliyun → alicloud synonym missing (this PR fixes it)
• ✅ Environment variable searches (PULUMI_CONFIG_PASSPHRASE, etc.) not finding env vars page (this PR fixes it)
• ❌ proxmox and hetzner synonyms already work in production (removed from PR)
• ❌ Provider promotion rules not needed (package filtering works well, removed from PR)

Why Testing Environment Cannot Validate Search

Search cannot be validated in the testing environment (www.pulumi-test.io) because:

1. Hardcoded index name: Hugo templates hardcode data-index="production" in:

   • layouts/partials/docs/menu.html
   • layouts/partials/blog/search.html
   • layouts/partials/tutorials/nav.html

2. Shared Algolia index: Both production and testing use the same "production" Algolia index

3. Testing workflow: Generates search-index.json and uploads to testing S3, but never pushes to Algolia

4. Production-only updates: The hourly "Update Search Index" cron only fetches from production URLs (pulumi.com/search-index.json) and updates the production index

Validation approach: Merge to master, wait for next hourly Algolia update (or manually trigger), then test on production.

Impact

Fixes searches for Alibaba Cloud provider and ~40 environment variable searches per month.

[claude]

Documentation Review

I've reviewed the changes in this PR based on analytics data to improve search findability. The implementation looks solid overall with just a few minor observations.

What works well

✅ Synonyms: The three new provider synonyms (aliyun/alicloud, hetzner/hcloud, proxmox/proxmoxve) follow the established pattern correctly and are alphabetically sorted.

✅ JavaScript structure: All promotion rules follow the existing pattern with proper objectID naming, condition structure, and consequence format.

✅ Frontmatter search keywords: The environment variables page now has search keywords that match existing patterns (see content/docs/iac/concepts/state-and-backends.md for comparison of the keywords: field).

Observations

1. Frontmatter field name inconsistency (content/docs/iac/cli/environment-variables.md:14-28)

The environment variables page uses search: with nested keywords: and boost:, but existing examples in the codebase use a top-level keywords: field (not nested under search:). Compare:

This PR (new pattern):

search:
  keywords:
    - PULUMI_CONFIG_PASSPHRASE
  boost: true

Existing pattern (from state-and-backends.md):

keywords:
 - IaC
 - infrastructure state

Is the search: wrapper with boost: true a new feature being introduced? If so, this is fine. If not, consider using the existing keywords: field format for consistency.

2. PULUMI_ environment variable rule scope (scripts/search/settings.js:135-157)

The promotion rule uses anchoring: "contains" with pattern "PULUMI_", which will match any query containing that substring (e.g., "PULUMI_CONFIG", "using PULUMI_HOME", etc.). This is likely the intended behavior for catching all environment variable searches, but worth confirming it won't over-promote the page for queries like "setting up PULUMI_ACCESS_TOKEN with AWS" where users might want AWS-specific results first.

Summary

The changes are well-structured and data-driven. The only question is whether the new search: frontmatter structure is intentional or should align with the existing keywords: pattern. The synonym additions and promotion rules look good and follow established conventions.

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Mention me (@claude) if you'd like me to review any changes or have questions about these observations!

[pulumi-bot]

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[pulumi-bot]

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[CamSoper]

@claude Implement the correct pattern, please. Ignore the "boost" parameter if it's unsupported.

[claude]

Claude finished @CamSoper's task in 1m 7s —— View job

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Frontmatter pattern corrected

• Read current environment variables file
• Confirm correct pattern from existing files
• Update frontmatter to use top-level keywords: field
• Changes ready for commit

Changes Made

I've updated content/docs/iac/cli/environment-variables.md to use the correct frontmatter pattern:

Before:

search:
  keywords:
    - PULUMI_CONFIG_PASSPHRASE
    # ... more keywords
  boost: true

After:

keywords:
 - PULUMI_CONFIG_PASSPHRASE
 # ... more keywords

The changes:

1. ✅ Removed the search: wrapper - now using top-level keywords: field
2. ✅ Removed the boost: true parameter (as instructed)
3. ✅ Aligned indentation to match existing pattern (single space after dash)

The file is ready to commit. Due to GitHub Actions permissions, I cannot push directly to the branch, but the changes are staged locally. You can pull and push them, or I can provide you with the exact diff to apply manually.

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Branch: CamSoper/search-findability-improvements |