Feature request: Expose Instant Search Instance (Vue)

[igorwessel]

It would be useful to officially expose the underlying instantsearch instance in Vue InstantSearch, similarly to what is available in React through hooks like useInstantSearch.

Today, accessing the instance (especially to use the helper) requires relying on internal injection keys, which feels fragile and hacky:

const instantSearchInstance = inject<InstantSearchInstance | null>(
  '$_ais_instantSearchInstance',
  null
)

My Use Case

Current use case is batching multiple facetFilters updates before triggering a search.

Without direct access to the helper, it becomes difficult to efficiently group refinements and avoid unnecessary intermediate searches/re-renders.

const helper = this.instantSearchInstance?.helper

helper.toggleFacetRefinement(this.attribute, id)

Question

Is there an officially recommended way to batch multiple filter/refinement updates before triggering a search in Vue InstantSearch, without relying on the helper directly?

At the moment, accessing the helper through the internal injected instantsearch instance seems to be the only practical approach for this kind of use case.

[Haroenv]

the right solution is to turn your custom code into a connector and then use the widget mixin. That can be based on the refinement list connector likely, but just applying multiple refinements at once before searching. You may also be able to use setUiState from a widget mixin with the widget passed as true (I believe this bypasses the checks for a valid widget, and allows you to access the instantsearch instance too).