---
id: STORE-15
family: GR-STORE
level: extended
profiles: [storage-api, editor-client]
posture: normative-target
added: "1.0"
changed: "1.0"
source: https://flowdrop.io/spec/rules/gr-store/store-15
specification: FlowDrop Workflow Specification 1.0-draft
licence: CC BY 4.0
---

# STORE-15 — Searching the workflow list matches a literal substring of the name

*GR-STORE (Part I) · level: extended · profiles: storage-api, editor-client · added in 1.0*

The term is text to find, not a pattern to interpret, so a name containing a percent sign is found by searching for a percent sign.

## The rule

> **Normative.** This is the rule.
>
> 1. A list request may carry a search term, which filters the list to workflows whose name contains it, compared without regard to case and matched anywhere in the name.
>
> 2. The term is matched literally and carries no pattern syntax: `%` and `_` match themselves and nothing else.
>
> 3. The same filter applies to the count, so the reported total describes the filtered set rather than the collection (API-6).
>
> 4. A term that matches nothing answers an empty page with a coherent pagination block, not a refusal and not a not-found.
>
> 5. A term of `0` is an ordinary search term.
>
> 6. A search parameter that is not a single scalar value is refused with `400`.


## What it means

A search term is text to find, never a pattern to interpret. That matters
because the family of characters a pattern language treats specially —
`%` and `_`, in the pattern syntax this rule explicitly rules out — are
ordinary characters in a workflow name, and a caller who names a workflow
`100% coverage` has to be able to find it by searching for the percent sign
literally, not by learning to escape it first.

A term that matches nothing is not a refusal and not a not-found: it is an
ordinary page, empty, with a pagination block that still reports correctly
on zero rows. And the filter and the count agree with each other — the
reported total describes the filtered set the caller is looking at, not the
whole collection behind it (API-6).

## Example

```http title="A search matching two workflows by a case-different substring" verdict="200 paginated"
GET /api/flowdrop/workflows?search=INVOICE

{"success": true, "data": [ … ], "pagination": {"total": 2, "limit": 50, "offset": 0, "has_more": false}}
```

```http title="A percent sign, matched literally rather than read as a wildcard" verdict="200 paginated"
GET /api/flowdrop/workflows?search=%25

{"success": true, "data": [ … ], "pagination": {"total": 1, "limit": 50, "offset": 0, "has_more": false}}
```

```http title="A term no name contains" verdict="200 paginated"
GET /api/flowdrop/workflows?search=nothing+here

{"success": true, "data": [], "pagination": {"total": 0, "limit": 50, "offset": 0, "has_more": false}}
```

A wildcard reading of `_nvoice` would match a name containing `Invoice`; a
literal one, which is what this rule requires, matches nothing — the same
empty, coherent answer as any other term nothing contains.

## Why

Recorded under OPEN-19.

## Related rules

- Names: API-6, STORE-14

---

Rule identifiers are permanent and are never renumbered. This specification carries
no implementation status: each implementation publishes its own standing against
these rules. Licensed CC BY 4.0.