DocumentationAEM 6.5 LTSUser Guide

Query Builder Predicate Reference query-builder-predicate-reference

Last update: Fri Jan 30 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
  • Applies to:
  • Experience Manager 6.5 LTS

CREATED FOR:

  • Developer
CAUTION
The information on this page is not exhaustive.
For full information, see the list under Available predicates on the Query Builder Debugger console; for example, at:
For example, see:

General general

Predicates predicates

boolproperty boolproperty

Matches on JCR BOOLEAN properties. Only accepts the values " true" and " false." If set to " false," it matches if the property has the value " false" or if it does not exist at all. Useful for checking for boolean flags that are only set when enabled.

The inherited " operation" parameter has no meaning.

It supports facet extraction. Provides buckets for each true or false value, but only for existing properties.

Properties properties

  • boolproperty
    Relative path to property, for example, myFeatureEnabled or jcr:content/myFeatureEnabled.

  • value
    Value to check property for, " true" or " false."

contentfragment contentfragment

Restricts the result to content fragments.

It does not support filtering.

It does not support facet extraction.

Properties properties-1

  • contentfragment
    It can be used with any value to check for content fragments.

dateComparison datecomparison

Compares two JCR DATE properties with each other. You can test if they are equal, unequal, greater than or greater-than-or-equal.

A filtering-only predicate and cannot use a search index.

Properties properties-2

  • property1

    Path to first date property.

  • property2

    Path to second date property.

  • operation

    " equals" for exact match, " !=" for unequality comparison, " greater" for property1 greater than property2, " >=" for property1 greater than or equal to property2. The default value is " equals."

daterange daterange

Matches JCR DATE properties against a date and time interval. Uses the ISO8601
format for dates and times ( YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.SSSZ) and allows also partial representations, like YYYY-MM-DD. Alternatively, the timestamp can be provided as the number of milliseconds since 1970 in the UTC timezone, the UNIX® time format.

You can look for anything between two timestamps, anything newer or older than a given date, and also chose between inclusive and open intervals.

It supports facet extraction. Provides buckets “today,” “this week,” “this month,” “last 3 months,” “this year,” “last year” and “earlier than last year.”

It does not support filtering.

Properties properties-3

  • property

    Relative path to a DATE property, for example, jcr:lastModified.

  • lowerBound

    Lower date bound to check property for, for example, 2014-10-01.

  • lowerOperation

    " >" (newer) or " >=" (at or newer), applies to the lowerBound. The default is " >."

  • upperBound

    Upper bound to check property for, for example, 2014-10-01T12:15:00.

  • upperOperation

    " <" (older) or " <=" (at or older), applies to the upperBound. The default is " <."

  • timeZone

    ID of timezone to use when it is not given as an ISO-8601 date string. The default is the default timezone of the system.

excludepaths excludepaths

Excludes nodes from the result where their path matches a regular expression.

A filtering-only predicate and cannot use a search index.

It does not support facet extraction.

Properties properties-4

  • excludepaths

    Regular expression matched against result paths, excluding matching ones from the result.

fulltext fulltext

Searches for terms in the fulltext index.

It does not support filtering.

It does not support facet extraction.

Properties properties-5

  • fulltext

    The fulltext search terms.

  • relPath

    The relative path to search in the property or subnode. This property is optional.

group group

Lets nested conditions be built. Groups can contain nested groups. Everything in a query builder query is implicitly in a root group, which can have p.or and p.not parameters as well.

Example for matching either one of two properties against a value:

group.p.or=true
group.1_property=jcr:title
group.1_property.value=My Page
group.2_property=navTitle
group.2_property.value=My Page

Conceptually (1_property OR 2_property).

Example for nested groups:

fulltext=Management
group.p.or=true
group.1_group.path=/content/geometrixx/en
group.1_group.type=cq:Page
group.2_group.path=/content/dam/geometrixx
group.2_group.type=dam:Asset

Searches for the term “Management” within pages in /content/geometrixx/en or in assets in /content/dam/geometrixx.

Conceptually fulltext AND ( (path AND type) OR (path AND type) ). Such OR joins need good indexes for performance.

Properties properties-6

  • p.or

    If set to " true," only one predicate in the group must match. Defaults to " false," meaning all must match

  • p.not

    If set to " true," it negates the group (defaults to " false").

  • <predicate>

    Adds nested predicates.

  • N_<predicate>

    Adds multiple nested predicates of the same time, like 1_property, 2_property, ....

hasPermission haspermission

Restricts the result to items where the current session has the specified JCR privileges.

A filtering-only predicate and cannot use a search index. It does not support facet extraction.

Properties properties-7

  • hasPermission

    Comma-separated JCR privileges that the current user session must ALL have the node in question. For example, jcr:write, jcr:modifyAccessControl.

language language

Finds CQ pages in a specific language. This looks at both the page language property and the page path which often includes the language or locale in a top-level site structure.

A filtering-only predicate and cannot use a search index.

It supports facet extraction. Provides buckets for each unique language code.

Properties properties-8

  • language

    ISO language code, for example, “de.”

mainasset mainasset

Checks if a node is a DAM main asset and not a subasset. Basically every node is not inside a “subassets” node. Does not check for the dam:Asset node type. To use this predicate, set " mainasset=true" or " mainasset=false," there are no further properties.

A filtering-only predicate and cannot use a search index.

It supports facet extraction and provides two buckets for main and subassets.

Properties properties-9

  • mainasset

    Boolean, " true" for main assets, " false" for subassets.

memberOf memberof

Finds items that are member of a specific sling resource collection.

A filtering-only predicate and cannot use a search index. It does not support facet extraction.

Properties properties-10

  • memberOf

    Path of Sling resource collection.

nodename nodename

Matches on JCR node names.

It supports facet extraction. Provides buckets for each unique node name (filename).

Properties properties-11

  • nodename

    Node name pattern that allows wildcards: * = any or no char, ? = any char, [abc] = only chars in brackets.

notexpired notexpired

Matches items by checking if a JCR DATE property is greater or equal than the current server time. Can be used to check on an " expiresAt" like date property and limit to only the ones that have not expired yet ( notexpired=true) or that have expired already ( notexpired=false).

It does not support filtering.

It supports facet extraction in the same way as the daterange predicate.

Properties properties-12

  • notexpired

    Boolean, " true" for not expired yet (date in the future or equal), " false" for expired (date in the past) (required).

  • property

    Relative path to the DATE property to check (required).

orderby orderby

Lets the results be sorted. If ordering by multiple properties is required, this predicate must be added multiple times using the number prefix, such as 1_orderby=first, 2_oderby=second.

Properties properties-13

  • orderby

    Either JCR property name indicated by a leading @, for example, @jcr:lastModified or @jcr:content/jcr:title, or another predicate in the query, for example, 2_property, on which to sort.

  • sort

    Sort direction, either " desc" for descending or " asc" for ascending (default).

  • case

    If set to ignore, it makes sorting case insensitive, meaning “a” comes before “B”; if empty or left out, sorting is case-sensitive, meaning “B” comes before “a”

path path

Searches within a given path.

It does not support facet extraction.

Properties properties-14

  • path

    Path pattern. When exact=false (default), the search matches the entire subtree under the specified path—similar to appending //* in XPath, but it does not include the base path itself. When exact=true, the search matches only the exact path, which can include * wildcards. If self is set, the search includes the base node and its entire subtree.

  • exact

    If exact is true (on), the exact path must match, but it can contain simple wildcards ( *), that match names, but not " /"; if it is false (default) all descendents are included (optional).

  • flat

    Searches only the direct children (like appending " /*" in xpath) (only used if ’ exact’ is not true, optional).

  • self

    Searches the subtree but includes the base node given as path (no wildcards).

property property

Matches on JCR properties and their values.

It supports facet extraction. Provides buckets for each unique property value in the results.

Properties properties-15

  • property

    Relative path to property, for example, jcr:title.

  • value

    Value to check the property for; follows the JCR property type to string conversions.

  • N_value

    Use 1_value, 2_value, … to check for multiple values (combined with OR by default, with AND if and=true) (since 5.3).

  • and

    Set to true for combining multiple values ( N_value) with AND (since 5.3).

  • operation

    Use equals for an exact match (default) and unequals for an inequality comparison. Use like to apply the optional jcr:like XPath function. Use not for no match (for example, not(@prop) in XPath); in this case, the value parameter is ignored. Use exists to check whether a property exists: true (default) requires the property, and false is equivalent to not.

  • depth

    A number of wildcard levels underneath which the property and relative path can exist. For example, property=size depth=2 checks node and size, node/*/size, and node/*/*/size.

rangeproperty rangeproperty

Matches a JCR property against an interval. Applies to properties with linear types, such as LONG, DOUBLE, and DECIMAL. For DATE, see the daterange predicate that has optimized date format input.

You can define a lower bound and an upper bound or only one of them. The operation (for example, “lesser than” or “lesser or equals”) can also be specified for lower and upper bound, individually.

It does not support facet extraction.

Properties properties-16

  • property

    Relative path to property.

  • lowerBound

    Lower bound to check property for.

  • lowerOperation

    " >" (default) or " >=," applies to the lowerValue

  • upperBound

    Upper bound to check property for.

  • upperOperation

    " <" (default) or " <=," applies to the lowerValue

  • decimal

    " true" if the checked property is of type Decimal

relativedaterange relativedaterange

Matches JCR DATE properties against a date and time interval using time offsets relative to the current server time. You can specify lowerBound and upperBound using either a millisecond value or the bugzilla syntax 1s 2m 3h 4d 5w 6M 7y. Prefix with " -" to indicate a negative offset before the current time. If you only specify lowerBound or upperBound, the other one defaults to 0, meaning the current time.

For example:

  • upperBound=1h (and no lowerBound) would select anything in the next hour
  • lowerBound=-1d (and no upperBound) would select anything in the last 24 hours
  • lowerBound=-6M and upperBound=-3M would select anything 6 months to 3 months old
  • lowerBound=-1500 and upperBound=5500 would select anything between 1500 milliseconds in the past and 5500 milliseconds in the future
  • lowerBound=1d and upperBound=2d would select anything in the day after tomorrow

It does not take leap years into consideration and all months are 30 days.

It does not support filtering.

It supports facet extraction in the same way as the daterange predicate.

Properties properties-17

  • upperBound

    Upper date bound in milliseconds or 1s 2m 3h 4d 5w 6M 7y (one second, two minutes, three hours, four days, five weeks, six months, seven years) relative to current server time, use “-” for negative offset.

  • lowerBound

    Lower date bound in milliseconds or 1s 2m 3h 4d 5w 6M 7y (one second, two minutes, three hours, four days, five weeks, six months, seven years) relative to current server time, use “-” for negative offset.

root root

Root predicate group. It supports all features of a group and lets you set global query parameters.

The name “root” is never used in a query, it is implicit.

Properties properties-18

  • p.offset

    The number indicating the start of the result page, that is, how many items to skip.

  • p.limit

    The number indicating the page size.

  • p.guessTotal

    To avoid the cost of calculating a full result total, do not count all matches. Instead, set a maximum total to count up to (for example, 1000) to give users a rough size and exact totals for smaller results. Or set it to true to count only up to the minimum required: p.offset + p.limit.

  • p.excerpt

    If set to " true," include full text excerpt in the result.

  • p.hits

    (only for the JSON servlet) select the way the hits are written as JSON, with these standard ones (extensible via the ResultHitWriter service):

    • simple:

      Minimal items like path, title, lastmodified, excerpt (if set).

    • full:

      Results are rendered as Sling JSON for each node, with jcr:path showing the hit path. By default, the response includes only the node’s direct properties; use p.nodedepth=N to include deeper content, where 0 returns the entire subtree. Set p.acls=true to include the current session’s JCR permissions for each item (create = add_node, modify = set_property, delete = remove).

    • selective:

      The response includes only the properties listed in p.properties, which is a space-separated list of relative paths (use + in URLs). If a relative path has a depth greater than 1, the output nests it as child objects. The special jcr:path property always includes the hit path.

savedquery savedquery

It includes all predicates of a persisted query builder query into the current query as a subgroup predicate.

It does not run an extra query but extend the current query.

Queries can be persisted programmatically using QueryBuilder#storeQuery(). The format can be either a multi-line String property or a nt:file node that contains the query as a text file in Java™ properties format.

It does not support facet extraction for the predicates of the saved query.

Properties properties-19

  • savedquery

    Path to the saved query (String property or nt:file node).

similar similar

Similarity search using JCR XPath’s rep:similar().

It does not support filtering. It does not support facet extraction.

Properties properties-20

  • similar
    Absolute path to the node for which to find similar nodes.

  • local
    A relative path to a descendant node or . for the current node (optional, default is " .").

tag tag

Searches for content tagged with one or more tags, by specifying tag title paths.

It supports facet extraction. Provides buckets for each unique tag, using their current tag title path.

Properties properties-21

  • tag

    Tag title path to look for, for example, “Asset Properties : Orientation / Landscape.”

  • N_value

    Use 1_value, 2_value, … to check for multiple tags (combined with OR by default, with AND if and=true) (since 5.6).

  • property

    Property (or relative path to property) to look at (default " cq:tags")

tagid tagid

Searches for content tagged with one or more tags, by specifying tag IDs.

It supports facet extraction. Provides buckets for each unique tag, using their current tag ID.

Properties properties-22

  • tagid

    Tag id so you can look for, for example, " properties:orientation/landscape."

  • N_value

    Use 1_value, 2_value, … to check for multiple tagids (combined with OR by default, with AND if and=true) (since 5.6).

  • property

    Property (or relative path to property) to look at (default " cq:tags").

tagsearch tagsearch

Searches for content tagged with one or more tags, by specifying keywords. Searches first for tags that contain these keywords in their titles, then restricts the result to only tagged items.

It does not support facet extraction.

Properties Properties-1

  • tagsearch

    Keyword to search for in tag titles.

  • property

    Property (or relative path to property) to look at (default cq:tags).

  • lang

    To search in a certain localized tag title only (for example, de).

  • all

    (bool) Search entire tag fulltext, that is, all titles, description, and so on. Takes precedence over “l ang.”

type type

Restricts results to a specific JCR node type, both primary node type or mixin type and finds subtypes of that node type. Repository search indexes must cover the node types for efficient execution.

It supports facet extraction. Provides buckets for each unique type in the results.

Properties Properties-2

  • type

    Node type or mixin name to search for, for example, cq:Page.

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