Implement an option to retrieve search results from the Ballerina Central

[nipunayf]

Purpose

The current search implementation is limited to the local index, which is a snapshot of packages inballerina and ballerinax. The searchCentral flag is added to the search API, enabling users to search the central repository instead of the local index, thereby broadening the results to include user-published packages.

Addresses wso2/product-ballerina-integrator#758

Remarks

• The central lacks dedicated APIs for searching functions and types separately (not affected for the connections as there is a separate endpoint for it). As a result, the LS must use the search-suggestions API for all searches and filter results based on kind. This approach affects pagination since we cannot guarantee that we'll meet the specified limit in the request.
  • One approach would be to query the central until we fetch enough results to meet the limit. Not only that this is an inefficient approach, but also it would require a complex agreement between the LS and the extension to dynamically adjust the offset.
  • The sustainable solution would be to implement additional APIs in the central to support searching based on function kinds. However, this would be a waste of effort since providing APIs for streaming would be a better use of resources.
• The ideal solution is to first query the local index and stream results from the central repository in the background. This approach keeps the search fast and the UI responsive, while still providing a broad range of results. However, it requires additional APIs from Ballerina Central.

Samples

Connection Search

Screen.Recording.2025-07-17.at.7.47.53.PM.mov

Function Search

Screen.Recording.2025-07-17.at.7.56.23.PM.mov

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR adds support for searching Ballerina Central when the searchCentral flag is set, augmenting existing local index searches with remote results.

• Introduce a searchCentral boolean flag in SearchCommand and update execute() to branch based on it
• Implement searchCentral() in TypeSearchCommand, FunctionSearchCommand, ConnectorSearchCommand, and NPFunctionSearchCommand
• Add io.ballerina.centralconnector dependency in module-info and Gradle build

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 7 out of 7 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
flow-model-generator-core/src/main/java/module-info.java	Add io.ballerina.centralconnector module requirement
TypeSearchCommand.java	Import central connector, remove old includeAllResults param, add searchCentral()
SearchCommand.java	Add searchCentral field, default constant, constructor parsing, and update execute() logic
NPFunctionSearchCommand.java	Override searchCentral() to delegate to search()
FunctionSearchCommand.java	Import central connector, implement searchCentral() for functions
ConnectorSearchCommand.java	Import connector response, refactor local builds, implement searchCentral()
build.gradle	Add flow-model-central-client project dependency