Enhancing PayloadCMS Search Plugin: Support for Access Control & Multi-Tenant Filtering

[italodr]

I’m currently using the following two plugins in the same project:

• plugin-search
• plugin-multitenant

Both work great independently, but there’s a major limitation when combining them.

Problem

1. The search plugin does not allow customizing access control for its internal collection.
   As a result, the search index is general accessible, exposing all indexed documents regardless of visibility rules.
2. There is no way to filter search results by tenant, meaning that all indexed entries from all sites are mixed together.
   In a multi-tenant setup, this breaks data isolation.

What’s Needed

Ideally, the search plugin should:

• Allow overriding or extending the access control of its collection, so it can be hidden or restricted like any other collection.
• Provide a mechanism to filter search results by tenant, supporting seamless integration with plugin-multitenant.
• Ensure that each tenant can only query the documents indexed for its own context.

Why This Matters

For multi-tenant applications, exposing cross-tenant search results is a deal-breaker.
Access control and tenant-based filtering are essential traits for secure, isolated environments.

If these capabilities could be added—or if there’s a recommended workaround—it would significantly improve compatibility between both plugins.

[DallasO]

Have you tried searchOverrides?

[italodr]

@DallasO you're absolutely right, I completely misread the definition of searchOverrides