Module 8 — Keyword Filtering

Filter postings containing undesirable or wholly unfamiliar content, and surface postings containing desired signals. Runs as a pre-commit in-memory pass on staged postings, and again post-commit in the ranker when live config changes.

Keyword filtering is a filtering concern only — it does not influence search term generation. Search terms are driven by global intent via searchTermGen.ts.

Contents

• Module 8 — Keyword Filtering
  • Relationship to excluded_stack
  • Configuration
  • Matching Logic
  • Filtering Integration
  • UI — SearchConfig.tsx

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Relationship to excluded_stack

excluded_stack (defined in search_config) operates narrowly on the normalized tech_stack[] array. Keyword filters operate on a broader configurable field set and support both exclusion and requirement. Both are retained as complementary mechanisms — excluded_stack for precise stack-level blocks, keyword filters for everything else.

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Configuration

Stored in search_config:

required_keywords    list[KeywordEntry]  # Posting must match ≥1 (OR logic)
excluded_keywords    list[KeywordEntry]  # Posting is dropped if any match
keyword_match_fields list[str]           # Configurable: ["title", "tech_stack", "raw_text"]
                                         #   default: ["title", "tech_stack"]

KeywordEntry
  value   str   # plain string, or prefixed with "re:" for regex

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Matching Logic

• Case-insensitive matching
• Partial matches are intentional (e.g. "cobol" matches "COBOL")
• Prefix a keyword with "re:" to interpret it as a regex pattern

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Filtering Integration

Point	Behaviour
Pre-commit	Applied to in-memory staged postings during PRE_COMMIT_FILTER. Filtered counts appear in the commit summary.
Post-commit (ranker)	Re-applied dynamically from live config on every job board load — adding/removing keywords after a commit takes effect on already-stored postings without a re-scrape.

Order within Stage 1 of the ranker:

1a. Keyword filter (required / excluded)
1b. YOE filter
1c. excluded_stack filter

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UI — SearchConfig.tsx

• Tag-input fields for required and excluded keywords
• Toggle to enable raw_text matching (broader but slower)
• Live count of postings currently in the DB that would survive each filter pass