Elasticsearch improvements, hosting an Orchard Core application on Ubuntu VPS using GitHub Actions - This week in Orchard (19/09/2025)
All of our speakers and their introductions for Orchard Harvest are now available! The topics for this week are Elasticsearch improvements. See a demo about how you can host an Orchard Core application on Ubuntu VPS using GitHub Actions!
Orchard Core updates
Adding track_total_hits support in Elasticsearch
Generally, the total hit count can't be computed accurately without visiting all matches, which is costly for queries that match lots of documents. The track_total_hits parameter allows you to control how the total number of hits should be tracked.
When set to true, the search response will always track the number of hits that match the query accurately (e.g., total. Relation will always be equal to eq when track_total_hits is set to true).
This update adds support for Total Hits Count in Elasticsearch queries. When a query includes track_total_hits: true, the response will report the total number of documents matching the query, rather than just the number of documents returned in the current page.
Utilize SearchRequest to search in Elasticsearch
This feature is about refactoring the Elasticsearch search integration to simplify and standardize how search requests are constructed and processed. The most significant change is the replacement of multiple separate search parameters with a single SearchRequest object, which streamlines the flow of data and reduces code duplication. Additional improvements include enhanced validation for custom queries and better error handling. Mike Alhayek replaced multiple search parameters (such as Query, Highlight, Sorts, etc.) in ElasticsearchSearchContext with a single SearchRequest property. He updated all usages to construct and consume this unified request object. He also refactored ElasticsearchService.SearchAsync to build the SearchRequest object for all query types (custom, query string, and multi-match), reducing code duplication and improving maintainability.
These changes collectively make the Elasticsearch integration more robust, easier to maintain, and less error-prone.
Demos
Hosting an Orchard Core application on Ubuntu VPS using GitHub Actions
This demo is about how you can host your Orchard Core application on an Ubuntu VPS. VPS is a quick way to host your website online, ideal for small websites. This GitHub repository contains a very simple Orchard Core site with one module. You can deploy this site to VPS using GitHub Actions. The mentioned repository contains a main.yml file with a workflow that builds and publishes the files to the server.
If you are planning to publish your Orchard Core application on Ubuntu, check out this demo on YouTube by Miloš Jovanović from Lombiq for a detailed walkthrough of the entire process!
News from the community
Orchard Harvest 2025 speakers
The Orchard Harvest 2025 conference will be held in Prague, and we look forward to seeing you all this autumn in the Czech Republic, in the heart of Europe. Our confirmed dates for this year are November 11th and 12th. Secure your early-bird tickets to the conference, taking place November 11-12, 2025, in Prague at the Botanique Hotel Prague, a modern hotel inspired by nature with a green approach in the city centre.
Don't miss this limited-time offer: just $250 for two days of all-access learning and networking. Get your tickets here!
All of our speakers and their bios are now available! Be sure to check out the updated official website of the conference for our awesome speakers!
As we move forward, we will keep community members informed of the details, and you will find every detail in this newsletter, too!
We hope to see you in Prague!
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