Official Vespa.ai Partner

Extend Vespa with production-grade custom Java components

For teams already running Vespa, Searchplex implements custom Java components when query logic, ingestion behavior, or engine-adjacent APIs need to run inside Vespa rather than in surrounding application services.

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Why this exists

Some retrieval logic belongs inside Vespa

As Vespa deployments mature, parts of the system become too tightly coupled to retrieval, ranking, or document processing to live comfortably in application code.

What starts as an app-layer workaround often becomes recurring logic on the critical path: query rewriting, enrichment, ranking orchestration, ingestion-time transformation, or internal APIs tied directly to search behavior.

Pushing that work through external services adds latency and moving parts. Vespa's container model lets teams implement it directly in the query, document-processing, and serving path.

Query-time logic has outgrown app-layer glue

Query-time logic runs on every request and has become too important to leave in scattered application services, especially when latency keeps rising because engine-adjacent work is happening over the network.

Ingestion needs reliable processing

Ingestion needs transformation, enrichment, or validation before documents reach their indexed form.

Retrieval depends on Vespa internals

Ranking and retrieval behavior depends on Vespa-specific primitives, chains, handlers, or processing flows.

The app layer is becoming the wrong place

The application layer is becoming a dumping ground for logic that should live inside the retrieval system.
What we implement

How Searchplex implements custom Vespa components

Custom searchers

Implement query rewriting, enrichment, personalization, ranking orchestration, and other query-time behavior directly in Vespa search chains.

Document processors

Handle ingestion-time transformation, validation, metadata derivation, and enrichment before documents are finalized for indexing.

Request handlers

Build internal APIs and container-level endpoints when the required behavior does not fit the default request flow.

Engine-adjacent integration logic

Add custom logic that needs direct access to Vespa request, response, ranking, or processing paths without round-tripping through external services.
What Searchplex delivers
Design + build

Design the right container component

Decide whether the logic belongs in a searcher, document processor, request handler, or another Vespa container extension, then implement it against the real query, ingest, or serving path it needs to affect.
Production rollout

Ship it safely in production

Integrate it into the existing deployment, configuration, testing, observability, and rollout model of the running Vespa system.
Why Searchplex

Why teams use Searchplex for Vespa component work

01

We understand the container model

This work depends on how Vespa hosts components, wires configuration, executes chains, and rolls out changes safely.
02

We treat this as retrieval engineering

The goal is not generic plugin development. It is improving the behavior of a live retrieval system without destabilizing it.
03

We know where logic should live

Some logic belongs in the application layer. Some belongs inside the Vespa container. Searchplex helps teams make that distinction correctly.
Next step

Need help implementing custom Vespa components in a running system?

Searchplex helps teams design, implement, and ship custom Java components for query handling, document processing, and engine-adjacent APIs.

Vespa component engineering — custom searchers, document processors, request handlers, and engine-adjacent logic.
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