[BUG] Unexpected JSON error message in repository search

[BigVirusBoi]

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When using the "OR" operator in combination with the "owner" query and any other text, the search results become a mess of JSON text.

https://github.com/repos?q=owner%3A%40me+OR+org%3Aexample+test

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[nahyun27]

Hi! There seem to be two separate problems here:

1. Query parsing limitation

GitHub's search engine fails to parse a combination of OR between owner:/org: qualifiers and free-form text, e.g.:

owner:@me OR org:example test

This is likely a backend parser constraint — the OR operator doesn't seem to support mixing qualifiers with bare keywords in the same expression.

2. UI leaking raw JSON (the real bug)

Regardless of whether the query is valid, the UI should never surface raw search_phase_execution_exception JSON to the user. This error should be caught and replaced with a user-friendly message, e.g.:

⚠️ "We couldn't parse your query. Please check the syntax and try again."

Workaround (for now)

Split into separate searches, or omit the free-text term when using OR with owner/org qualifiers:

owner:@me test
org:example test

---

The JSON bleed is the part that definitely needs a fix on the UI/API layer — even if the query syntax ends up being intentionally unsupported, users should never see raw internal error payloads.

[itxashancode]

I've seen this before. The issue is that OR in GitHub search has very low precedence. Your query owner:@me OR org:example test is being parsed as (owner:@me) OR (org:example test). The second part org:example test isn't a valid qualifier, so GitHub's search backend falls back to returning raw JSON instead of the HTML results page.

The fix is to group your terms properly. You likely want repositories that are either owned by you or belong to the example org, and also contain the word "test". Use parentheses to enforce this:

owner:@me OR org:example +test

Or if you want repos that are in the org and have "test", but also include your own repos regardless of "test":

(org:example +test) OR owner:@me

Try this corrected URL:
https://github.com/search?q=owner%3A%40me+OR+org%3Aexample+%2Btest&type=repositories

The + before test makes it a required term. Adjust the parentheses and + based on your actual intent. The key is that OR separates complete, valid query clauses.