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Submitted

Search API support for exact string matching with special characters

Related products:Integrations, API & Custom Actions
  • July 29, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 15 views
J

Currently, the Intercom API's conversation search for source.body tokenizes content, preventing exact string matches when special characters (like hyphens) are present. For example, searching "trf-wsvz7k-cnitnn" fails, while "wsvz7k" works, because hyphens act as separators.

This limits precise conversation lookup using unique identifiers or phrases with special characters.

We request a feature enabling exact string matching, including with special characters, within the source.body field of the Intercom Conversation Search API.

This enhancement would significantly improve API utility and allow for more accurate and robust searches.

1 reply

A
  • Adrian Philipp
  • New Participant
  • February 1, 2026

Currently, there's a significant gap between the UI search functionality and API search capabilities when it comes to handling punctuation like hyphens.

The Problem:

  • UI search: Can successfully find "site-example.com" with exact matches
  • API search using source_body:contains: Returns zero results for domains with hyphens like "example-site.nl" or "site-example.com"
  • This affects automation workflows, particularly security use cases like searching for phishing domains

Requested Feature:

Add full-text search capability to the API that matches the UI's flexibility, allowing exact searches for text containing punctuation marks, especially hyphens.

Use Case:

Automated phishing detection workflows that need to search conversations for specific domains containing hyphens. Currently, workarounds like searching for partial domain names reduce accuracy and effectiveness.

Business Impact:

This limitation forces manual processes for security teams who rely on API automation to detect and respond to phishing attempts quickly.

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