refresh

Author: chcomley

docs/project/search/get-started-search.md

@@ -1,24 +1,30 @@
 ---
-title: Search across Azure DevOps
-titleSuffix: Azure DevOps
-description: Quickly search within Azure DevOps, across all your code, wiki, packages, and work items.
+title: Search across Azure D## Prerequisites
+Description: Quickly search within Azure DevOps, across all your code, wiki, packages, and work items.
 ms.assetid: A0889E82-EAE7-464C-B82A-B05D2E404426
 ms.subservice: azure-devops-search
 ms.custom: cross-service, cross-project
 ms.topic: how-to
 ms.author: chcomley
 author: chcomley
-ms.date: 08/08/2024
+ms.date: 07/31/2025
 monikerRange: '<= azure-devops'
 ---
 
 # Get started with search
 
 [!INCLUDE [version-lt-eq-azure-devops](../../includes/version-lt-eq-azure-devops.md)]
 
-You can quickly find work items, code files, wiki pages, or packages based on a keyword, wildcards, and other supported search filters with the search function.
+Azure DevOps provides powerful search capabilities that help you quickly find work items, code files, wiki pages, and packages across your projects and organization. Use keywords, wildcards, and advanced search filters to locate exactly what you need.
 
-For more information, see the following links:
+## What you can search
+
+- **Work items**: Find bugs, user stories, tasks, and other work items
+- **Code**: Search through source code files and repositories  
+- **Wiki pages**: Locate information in project and published wikis
+- **Packages**: Find artifacts in Azure Artifacts feeds
+
+For detailed information about specific search types, see:
 
 - [Functional code search](functional-code-search.md)
 - [Code Search extension](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms.vss-code-search)
@@ -27,27 +33,53 @@ For more information, see the following links:
 
 ## Prerequisites
 
-- **Access levels:**
-  - **All project members:** Every project member can use the search functions, including users with Stakeholder, Basic, and higher levels of access.
-- **Search results:**
-  - **Access-based results:** When you're searching across the organization or collection, only results for which a project member has access are listed.
-  - **Stakeholder limitations:**
-    - **Wiki search:** Stakeholder wiki search results are limited to provisioned wikis. Published wiki results don’t appear because they require access to regular repositories, which Stakeholders don’t have.
-    - **Code search:** Code search results don’t appear for Stakeholders.
+
+---  
+:::row:::
+   :::column span="1":::
+      **Access level**
+   :::column-end:::
+   :::column span="2":::
+      **Search capabilities**
+   :::column-end:::
+:::row-end:::
+---
+:::row:::
+   :::column span="1":::
+      **All project members**
+   :::column-end:::
+   :::column span="2":::
+      Every project member can use the search functions, including users with Stakeholder, Basic, and higher levels of access.
+   :::column-end:::
+:::row-end:::
+---
+:::row:::
+   :::column span="1":::
+      **Stakeholder limitations**
+   :::column-end:::
+   :::column span="2":::
+      - **Wiki search:** Limited to provisioned wikis only. Published wiki results don't appear because they require access to regular repositories.
+      - **Code search:** Not available for Stakeholder users.
+   :::column-end:::
+:::row-end:::
+---
+
+**Important notes:**
+- **Access-based results:** When you search across the organization or collection, only results for projects and items you have access to display.
 
 ::: moniker range="< azure-devops"
 > [!IMPORTANT]
-> A Collection Administrator must [install and configure search](install-configure-search.md).
+> For Azure DevOps Server, a Collection Administrator must [install and configure search](install-configure-search.md) before these features are available.
 ::: moniker-end
 
 ## Search tips
 
-- **Use keywords:** Start your search using a keyword. You can then apply other options, as needed, to broaden or narrow your search results.
+- **Start with keywords:** Begin your search with relevant keywords, then apply filters to refine results as needed.
     :::image type="content" source="media/shared/title-bar-search-box-select-type-tfs.png" alt-text="Screenshot of search boxes in Azure DevOps":::
 - **Adjust filters:** If your initial search doesn’t yield the desired results, try removing filters and searching again. Once you see the search results, you can narrow them down by applying appropriate filters and searching again.
-- **Check spelling:** Ensure your search terms are spelled correctly, as work item search doesn't ignore spelling errors.
-- **Refine wildcard searches:** If you receive a message that no matching files are found due to a wildcard search with too many hits, make your search more specific. Add more characters of the word or words you want to find, or use a condition or filter to restrict the number of possible matches.
-- **Case insensitivity:** Searches aren't case-sensitive.
+- **Check spelling:** Ensure your search terms are spelled correctly, as search doesn't automatically correct spelling errors.
+- **Refine wildcard searches:** If you receive a message that no matching files are found due to a wildcard search with too many hits, make your search more specific. Add more characters or use more filters to restrict the number of possible matches.
+- **Case insensitive:** All searches are case-insensitive.
 
 ## Search features, usage, and examples
 
@@ -166,27 +198,27 @@ The following features apply to all searches, including work items, code, and pa
 :::row-end:::
 ---
 
-## Search from a different page
+## Search from different contexts
 
-You can search from any of the following pages:
+The search experience adapts based on where you start your search:
 
-- Organization project page: Starts a search across all projects.
-- Project overview page: Automatically applies a filter to search within the selected project.
-- Boards page for a project: Automatically displays recent work items and backlogs accessed by the user.
-- Azure Repos, Pipelines, Test Plans, or an Artifacts page for a project: Automatically displays functional filters for code searches.
-- Wiki page: Automatically go to a wiki page you recently opened.
+- **Organization overview**: Search across all projects and repositories
+- **Project overview**: Automatically filters results to the current project
+- **Boards pages**: Shows recent work items and backlogs you accessed
+- **Azure Repos/Pipelines/Test Plans/Artifacts**: Displays relevant filters for code and artifact searches
+- **Wiki pages**: Defaults to wiki content and shows recently opened pages
 
-For more information, see the following articles:
+**Related resources:**
 - [Filter backlogs, boards, and plans](../../boards/backlogs/filter-backlogs-boards-plans.md)
 - [Provisioned vs. published wiki](../wiki/provisioned-vs-published-wiki.md)
 
 > [!TIP]
-> **No results found for ...**  
-> Too many hits from a simple wildcard search can result in no matching files. You can narrow your search by adding more characters or using a condition or filter.
+> **No results found?**  
+> If wildcard searches return too many results, narrow your search by adding more specific characters or applying filters.
 
-## More search functions
+## More search capabilities
 
-See the following table for more search tasks and actions.
+The following table shows other search tasks and where to find them:
 
 ---  
 :::row:::
@@ -277,15 +309,17 @@ Search has the following limitation: If you do a disaster recovery (DR) operatio
 
 ::: moniker-end
 
-## Marketplace extensions
+## Search extensions
+
+Enhance your search capabilities with these marketplace extensions:
 
-- [Code Search](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms.vss-code-search) - Extends search with fast, flexible, and precise search results across all your code. Required for searching repositories.
-- [Azure Paths Search](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=wavemotionio.ado-areapaths) - Adds a special search hub to Boards for searching within iterations and area paths without having to create and maintain custom queries.
+- **[Code Search](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms.vss-code-search)**: Provides fast, flexible, and precise search results across all your code repositories. Required for searching code content.
+- **[Azure Paths Search](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=wavemotionio.ado-areapaths)**: Adds a specialized search hub to Azure Boards for finding work items by iteration and area paths without creating custom queries.
 
 > [!NOTE]
-> Azure DevOps doesn't support some extensions. For more information or assistance, go to the [Visual Studio Marketplace](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms.vss-code-search).
+> Extension support varies by Azure DevOps deployment. For assistance, visit the [Visual Studio Marketplace](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms.vss-code-search).
 
-## Next steps
+## Next step
 
 > [!div class="nextstepaction"]
 > [Functional code search](functional-code-search.md)