Global search: topic-first with meeting fallback

[AndreRobitaille]

Summary

Implement a global search that prioritizes Topics and uses meetings/documents as supporting matches.

Requirements

• Primary results are Topics (canonical name + aliases).
• Secondary results include agenda items/meetings with topic links.
• Clearly label result type and evidence source.

Acceptance criteria

• Searching common issue terms yields Topics first.
• Meeting results link back to Topics when associations exist.

[AndreRobitaille]

Status update (2026-04-14): still open.

What exists today:

• Topics index has a ?q= search box (Topic.search_by_text) that returns Topics first, paginated — this covers the primary acceptance criterion.
• Admin-only knowledge search lives at /admin/search (RAG-powered Q&A over KB chunks).

Still missing:

• Public global search endpoint (not scoped to topics index).
• Meeting / agenda-item fallback results when the query doesn't match a topic.
• Result-type labeling distinguishing Topic vs Meeting vs Document hits.

Lower priority now that the newspaper homepage surfaces high-impact topics directly, but the gap is still real for residents looking up a specific term.