Semantic/Hybrid Search in the Browser
A developer explores the technical challenges and solutions for implementing semantic search directly within a web browser. The post discusses using Transformers.js and WebAssembly to run machine learning models locally without a server.
Why it matters
This demonstrates a shift toward privacy-focused, client-side AI applications that reduce infrastructure costs for small-scale web projects.
Eight years ago I added client-side search to this blog with Lunr.js . It creates an inverted index at build time, ships it as JSON, and matches strings in your browser. No server-side engine required. It has worked fine ever since, in the sense that it finds a post if you type a word that is actually in it.
The content is a technical tutorial and personal reflection on software development.
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