> … I agree.  I think file search has to be a service providing access to
> a fast database.

Good point.  Let's go in that direction then.

> I think the Guix Data Service is a good fit since it knows about
> packages, derivations, commits, and how they map to each other.  :-)  It
> could download nars and do the equivalent of ‘guix archive -t’ to get
> the list of file names.

Are you suggesting that guix "filesearch" polls a specific instance of
the Guix Data Service (e.g. data.guix.gnu.org) to download the file
index fro the current Guix revision?

What if the file index for a specific Guix commit (e.g. a very recent
one) is not yet available?  I suggest we fall back to the first older
index that's available, with a warning.  Thoughts?

> There’s an argument that it would be nice if file search were
> implemented as part of ‘guix publish’ because that would immediately
> benefit everyone without going through complex setups.  However, ‘guix
> publish’ wouldn’t really know what to index upfront, or maybe it could
> index lazily like it does with “baking”.

I don't understand why `guix publish' wouldn't work here.  Can you detail?

Thanks!

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/