Finder Before Index trigger for Joomla

Overview

Finder Before Index is a Trigger in Joomla Events › Finder Events. Before Finder indexes a content item into the search table.

Plugins can alter indexed text, metadata, or skip indexing.

Each run also includes who was logged in at the time and what kind of item was involved — see audit_user and audit_type in Payload Fields below.

This trigger is not connected yet — flows using it will not run until JOrchestrator adds support for this Joomla hook.

When this trigger fires, JOrchestrator starts the flow and passes the incoming event or request data to the next connected step. Configure filtering, payload shape, and security on the Design tab.

Why use this node

Finder Before Index is a trigger in the Joomla Events › Finder Events group. Triggers start a flow. They listen for an external signal — a CMS event, inbound HTTP call, payment notification, or schedule — and pass the incoming data to the first downstream step.

Typical reasons teams add Finder Before Index to a flow:

Automate backend work when Joomla fires FinderBeforeIndex
Notify administrators or sync external systems on this CMS lifecycle event
Enrich or validate CMS data before it is persisted
Audit user, content, or extension activity without custom plugins

When it runs

Before Finder indexes a content item into the search table.

Example workflows

Common patterns on the canvas:

Finder Before Index → Send Notification (admin alert)
Finder Before Index → Insert Row (audit log)
Finder Before Index → If → Send Email / Update Article

Properties panel

The designer shows these tabs for this node:

Tab	Purpose
Info	Plain-language description and output payload fields for downstream steps
Design	Trigger configuration and payload schema

System (automatic — not edited by the user)

These fields are managed by the designer or runtime — you do not type into them directly:

Property key	Label	Type	Required	Visible when	Notes
`_nodeId`	Node ID	`node-id`	No	—	—

User-configured — General tab

Property key	Label	Type	Required	Visible when	Notes
`label`	Label	`text`	No	—	Node label

CMS site configuration (not on this node's properties panel)

Credentials, API keys, mailers, SMTP, and integration defaults are configured in the CMS plugin under Node Configuration, not per step on this node. Link the flow to a domain before testing CMS-backed fields.

Output payload fields

After this step runs, later nodes can reference these fields using placeholders such as {{finder_before_index.context}}.

Field key	Type	Description
`context`	string	Joomla event context string.
`subject`	object	Email or notification subject line.
`indexer`	object	Nested object from this node's output.
`audit_user.id`	number	Nested field "audit_user.id" from this node's output payload.
`audit_user.username`	string	Nested field "audit_user.username" from this node's output payload.
`audit_user.email`	string	Nested field "audit_user.email" from this node's output payload.
`audit_user.name`	string	Nested field "audit_user.name" from this node's output payload.
`audit_user.guest`	boolean	Nested field "audit_user.guest" from this node's output payload.
`audit_user.client`	string	Nested field "audit_user.client" from this node's output payload.
`audit_type`	string	What kind of item triggered the event — for example article, category, or user.

Related nodes

Other steps in the same area of the palette:

Finder After Delete (event-onFinderAfterDelete) — Joomla Events › Finder Events
Finder After Index (event-onFinderAfterIndex) — Joomla Events › Finder Events
Finder After Save (event-onFinderAfterSave) — Joomla Events › Finder Events

Finder Before Index for Joomla