Search a place by name (keystroke-aware) - no auth required

Request: No auth. Query query (required, e.g. kol or Delhi), optional session_token (pass null/omit on the FIRST keystroke of a fresh search - the server mints one and returns it in data.session_token; echo that same value back on every following keystroke's call here AND on the final GET /public/places/details call, so Google bills the whole typing session once instead of per-request).

Server-side proxy for a 'search your birth city' box: the app sends free text on every keystroke, this endpoint calls Google Places Autocomplete (restricted to city-level results) with the backend's own key and returns lightweight place_id+name candidates - true prefix matching (kol matches Kolkata), unlike a full-address geocode. The app never needs its own Google Maps key. This endpoint deliberately does NOT return coordinates or timezone - call GET /public/places/details with the chosen result's place_id once the user picks one, to resolve those.

Cached in Redis for 7 days per normalised query text - independent of session_token, so a popular prefix isn't re-billed to Google on every search across every user regardless of whose session asked for it.

Success: 200 - data.results[] (up to 5 candidates, each with place_id/name) plus data.session_token (always present, carry it forward); [] results when nothing matches or the lookup failed - never a 4xx for a genuinely empty result.

Errors: 422 - missing/blank query. 429 - too many searches from this IP (>20 per 60s) - this endpoint is unauthenticated and calls a billed Google API, so it carries its own tighter limit on top of the app-wide one.

Responses

🟢200OK

application/json

Successful Response

Bodyapplication/json

Example

{
    "success": true,
    "message": "Success",
    "data": {
        "query": "kol",
        "results": [
            {
                "place_id": "ChIJZ_YISduC-DkRvCxsRwvWQes",
                "name": "Kolkata, West Bengal, India"
            }
        ],
        "session_token": "8f14e45f-ceea-467e-bd97-4f4f6b8c1a2e"
    }
}

🟠422Parameter Error

🟠429

Search a place by name (keystroke-aware) - no auth required

Request

Request Code Samples

Responses