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Brand Atlas search is full-text across the entire populated brand record, with section restrictions, exact-phrase matching, and a few quality-of-life patterns. This page covers how search works and the keyboard shortcuts most brand owners and team members find worth learning. Three ways:
  • Click the search field in the sidebar.
  • Press Cmd-K (macOS) or Ctrl-K (Windows, Linux).
  • Type / from anywhere in the portal.
Search is keyboard-first. Most working sessions never use the mouse for search.

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What is indexed

Search covers:
  • All populated standard sections.
  • All active Horizons.
  • The glossary (owned vocabulary terms).
  • Section history, including past values for changed fields.
Search does not cover:
  • Archived Horizons by default. Tick Include archived to extend the search.
  • Comments and Update Request discussion. Those are reachable from the Inbox.
  • Settings pages. Those are reached from the sidebar.

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Query patterns

The search field accepts a small number of patterns:
  • Plain text. Most useful for most cases. “Clear space” returns every passage mentioning clear space.
  • Exact phrase. Wrap in quotes to match exactly. "safe area" returns only the literal phrase.
  • Section restriction. Prefix with a section name and colon: voice:tone searches only the Voice section. Recognised prefixes: logo:, typography:, colour:, applications:, strategy:, voice:, photography:, social:, horizon:.
  • Field restriction. Less commonly needed: field:colour-hex #0f0f0f finds where a specific value lives.
  • Boolean operators. AND, OR, NOT are recognised. colour NOT pantone matches colour passages that do not mention Pantone.

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Result ordering

Results are ordered by a combination of recency and relevance. The default ordering shows the most relevant recent matches first. Two controls:
  • Sort. Switch between Relevance, Most recent, Oldest.
  • Filter. Restrict to a section, an author, a date range, or active vs archived.

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Keyboard shortcuts

The portal has a small set of shortcuts worth learning:
  • Search. Cmd-K / Ctrl-K
  • Toggle sidebar. Cmd-B / Ctrl-B
  • Toggle context panel. Cmd-/ / Ctrl-/
  • Inbox. G then I
  • Settings. G then S
  • New Horizon. Cmd-Shift-N / Ctrl-Shift-N
  • Raise Update Request. R from a section page (team member, Keeper+)
  • Approve and apply. Cmd-Enter / Ctrl-Enter from an open Update Request (brand owner)
The full list is available at Settings → Account → Keyboard shortcuts. A few patterns that show up across the portal:
  • Breadcrumbs at the top of every section. Click any part to jump up the hierarchy.
  • Previous / next links. Move between adjacent sections in the standard order. Useful when reviewing the atlas end-to-end.
  • Recently viewed. The five most recent sections appear at the top of the sidebar under Recent. Useful when bouncing between sections during a review.
  • Pinned items. A brand owner or team member can pin a section or Horizon to the top of their sidebar. Pinned items are per-user.

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Search and the team

Two things to know about search from the team-member side:
  • Search respects roles. A team member’s search results include only what their role can read. A restricted Horizon does not appear in their search even if a colleague’s results show it.
  • Guest searches are scoped. A Guest accessing the atlas through a Guest Pass searches only the sections the pass covers.

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When search does not return what you expect

Two common cases:
  1. The term is not in the indexed material. Search shows zero results. Either the material is missing (in which case the atlas needs a new section or Horizon, or an Update Request) or the term is phrased differently than the term you searched. Try a synonym; use the glossary.
  2. The result is from history, not current. Search includes past values. The first result might be a value that has been replaced. The result page marks historical matches as such; the current section page is always linked.
If a search consistently returns nothing useful for a question the team asks, it is a signal of a missing section. Add it.

Portal anatomy

Where search sits in the portal.

Glossary

Owned vocabulary terms.

Notifications

How the Inbox is organised.