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Manual alias management

Manual alias management gives you full control over when indices rotate. You create time-stamped indices, write to them, and swap aliases after indexing completes. This is the approach used by IncrementalSyncOrchestrator and the catalog data pattern.

  1. A new index is created with a time-stamped name (for example, products-2026.02.15.120000)
  2. Documents are written to the new index
  3. After drain and refresh, the write alias (products) is swapped to point to the new index
  4. The search alias (products-search) is updated to include the new index
  5. Old indices are optionally cleaned up

Configure aliases in the entity declaration:

[Entity<Product>(
    Target = EntityTarget.Index,
    Name = "products",
    WriteAlias = "products",
    ReadAlias = "products-search",
    SearchPattern = "products-*",
    DatePattern = "yyyy.MM.dd.HHmmss"
)]
Property Purpose
WriteAlias Alias that points to the current write target
ReadAlias Alias for search queries (can span multiple indices)
SearchPattern Glob pattern matching all indices for this entity
DatePattern Suffix pattern for time-stamped index names

When WriteAlias and ReadAlias are set, the channel automatically uses LatestAndSearchAliasStrategy. This strategy:

  • Creates (or updates) the write alias to point to the newest index
  • Creates (or updates) the search alias to include all matching indices
  • Uses _aliases API for atomic alias operations

After writing and draining, apply aliases explicitly:

await channel.WaitForDrainAsync(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30), ctx);
await channel.ApplyAliasesAsync(string.Empty, ctx);

Or use IncrementalSyncOrchestrator, which calls CompleteAsync to handle drain, refresh, and alias swapping together.