Version-aware search: scope or boost results to the version the reader is currently browsing

[caradragos95]

Problem

On a docs site that ships multiple versions side by side (e.g. 5.1/, 5.7/, 4.7.x/, 4.0/), Mintlify's in-site search returns results across all versions ranked purely by relevance — without any awareness of the version the reader is currently browsing.

In practice, this means older-version pages can outrank current-version equivalents, and readers see a result with 4.7.x/ (or older) in the URL and bail. The analytics show the click never happens, but the right page does exist for their version — they just can't find it.

Concrete repro on docs.flowx.ai

We ship versions 3.x → 5.7, all reachable from the version switcher.

Search query: webhook

• Top result returned: /4.7.x/setup-guides/plugins-setup-guide/reporting-setup#without-webhook
• Better targets that exist for the current version: /5.1/docs/platform-deep-dive/integrations/incoming-webhooks and /5.1/setup-guides/webhook-gateway-setup

Same pattern shows up on other multi-version queries.

• Per-page noindex: true would mean blanket-tagging hundreds of MDX files in old-version folders, which also degrades search for users on those versions.
• Per-page metadata tightening helps a little but doesn't beat cross-version ranking quirks.

What would solve it

Any one of these would unblock us, in order of preference:

1. Version-aware ranking — when a reader is browsing version X, results from version X are boosted (or the only ones returned) over results from other versions.
2. Project-level config to scope search to the active version — opt-in via docs.json, default off.
3. Folder-prefix exclusion list for the search index — separate from .mintignore, so we can keep pages live but pull them out of search results.

Happy to be a design partner / test instance for whichever direction you take. Thanks!