diff --git a/lib/search/api.sx b/lib/search/api.sx
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..8a06d444
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/search/api.sx
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+;; search public API — assembles the canonical Haskell source from all layers.
+;; Tests and callers concatenate `search/src` with their own top-level bindings
+;; (e.g. "result = lookupTerm \"cat\" idx\n") and evaluate via the haskell-on-sx
+;; interpreter. Public Haskell entry points: indexDoc, lookupTerm, deleteDoc,
+;; docFreq, allTerms, tokens, positioned.
+
+(define search/src (str search/tokenize-src "\n" search/index-src))
diff --git a/lib/search/conformance.conf b/lib/search/conformance.conf
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..cc75c6e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/search/conformance.conf
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+# search-on-sx conformance config — sourced by lib/guest/conformance.sh.
+
+LANG_NAME=search
+SCOREBOARD_DIR=lib/search
+MODE=counters
+COUNTERS_PASS=hk-test-pass
+COUNTERS_FAIL=hk-test-fail
+TIMEOUT_PER_SUITE=600
+
+PRELOADS=(
+  lib/haskell/tokenizer.sx
+  lib/haskell/layout.sx
+  lib/haskell/parser.sx
+  lib/haskell/desugar.sx
+  lib/haskell/runtime.sx
+  lib/haskell/match.sx
+  lib/haskell/eval.sx
+  lib/haskell/map.sx
+  lib/haskell/set.sx
+  lib/haskell/testlib.sx
+  lib/search/tokenize.sx
+  lib/search/index.sx
+  lib/search/api.sx
+  lib/search/testlib.sx
+)
+
+SUITES=(
+  "index:lib/search/tests/index.sx"
+)
diff --git a/lib/search/conformance.sh b/lib/search/conformance.sh
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..e50befa3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/search/conformance.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# Thin wrapper — see lib/guest/conformance.sh and lib/search/conformance.conf.
+exec bash "$(dirname "$0")/../guest/conformance.sh" "$(dirname "$0")/conformance.conf" "$@"
diff --git a/lib/search/index.sx b/lib/search/index.sx
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..3d285ec9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/search/index.sx
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+;; search inverted index — Haskell source fragment (depends on tokenize).
+;; Index = [(Term, [(DocId, [Pos])])], sorted by Term; postings sorted by DocId.
+;; Data.Map's public API lacks toList/keys/map/filter, so a sorted assoc-list
+;; index is used — it is the conceptual `Map Term [(DocId,[Pos])]` and exposes
+;; term iteration (allTerms) and df naturally for ranking.
+;;   emptyIndex :: Index
+;;   indexDoc   :: DocId -> String -> Index -> Index   (re-index replaces)
+;;   lookupTerm :: Term -> Index -> [(DocId, [Pos])]
+;;   deleteDoc  :: DocId -> Index -> Index
+;;   docFreq    :: Term -> Index -> Int
+;;   allTerms   :: Index -> [Term]
+
+(define
+  search/index-src
+  "emptyIndex = []\ngroupBump [] t p = [(t, [p])]\ngroupBump (g:gs) t p = if fst g == t then (t, snd g ++ [p]) : gs else g : groupBump gs t p\ngroupStep acc tp = groupBump acc (fst tp) (snd tp)\ngroupTok pairs = foldl groupStep [] pairs\ninsPosting d ps [] = [(d, ps)]\ninsPosting d ps (q:qs) = if d < fst q then (d, ps) : q : qs else if d == fst q then (d, ps) : qs else q : insPosting d ps qs\ninsTerm t d ps [] = [(t, [(d, ps)])]\ninsTerm t d ps (e:es) = if t < fst e then (t, [(d, ps)]) : e : es else if t == fst e then (fst e, insPosting d ps (snd e)) : es else e : insTerm t d ps es\nindexStep d ix tp = insTerm (fst tp) d (snd tp) ix\nindexDoc d text idx = foldl (indexStep d) idx (groupTok (positioned text))\nlookupTerm t idx = case lookup t idx of { Nothing -> []; Just pl -> pl }\ndocFreq t idx = length (lookupTerm t idx)\nallTerms idx = map fst idx\npostingKeep d q = fst q /= d\ndropTermDoc d e = (fst e, filter (postingKeep d) (snd e))\nplKeep e = not (null (snd e))\ndeleteDoc d idx = filter plKeep (map (dropTermDoc d) idx)\n")
diff --git a/lib/search/scoreboard.json b/lib/search/scoreboard.json
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4c5202b0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/search/scoreboard.json
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+{
+  "lang": "search",
+  "total_passed": 18,
+  "total_failed": 0,
+  "total": 18,
+  "suites": [
+    {"name":"index","passed":18,"failed":0,"total":18}
+  ],
+  "generated": "2026-06-06T18:12:50+00:00"
+}
diff --git a/lib/search/scoreboard.md b/lib/search/scoreboard.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..cf9cabce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/search/scoreboard.md
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+# search scoreboard
+
+**18 / 18 passing** (0 failure(s)).
+
+| Suite | Passed | Total | Status |
+|-------|--------|-------|--------|
+| index | 18 | 18 | ok |
diff --git a/lib/search/testlib.sx b/lib/search/testlib.sx
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..9c965b05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/search/testlib.sx
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+;; search test helpers — convert forced haskell values to plain SX and run
+;; programs built on top of search/src. Reuses hk-test / counters from
+;; lib/haskell/testlib.sx (preloaded by the conformance config).
+
+;; Recursively turn a forced HK value into plain SX:
+;;   cons-list  -> SX list,  Tuple -> SX list,  leaves unchanged.
+(define
+  search-hk->sx
+  (fn
+    (v)
+    (cond
+      ((and (list? v) (not (empty? v)) (= (first v) "[]")) (list))
+      ((and (list? v) (not (empty? v)) (= (first v) ":"))
+        (cons
+          (search-hk->sx (nth v 1))
+          (search-hk->sx (nth v 2))))
+      ((and (list? v) (not (empty? v)) (= (first v) "Tuple"))
+        (map search-hk->sx (rest v)))
+      (:else v))))
+
+;; Evaluate `extra` (extra top-level Haskell bindings) on top of search/src
+;; and return binding `name` as plain SX.
+(define
+  search-eval
+  (fn
+    (extra name)
+    (search-hk->sx
+      (hk-deep-force
+        (get (hk-eval-program (hk-core (str search/src extra))) name)))))
diff --git a/lib/search/tests/index.sx b/lib/search/tests/index.sx
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..2e9cb700
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/search/tests/index.sx
@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
+;; Phase 1 — tokenize + inverted index.
+
+(hk-test
+  "tokens basic lowercases"
+  (search-eval "\nresult = tokens \"The Cat sat\"\n" "result")
+  (list "the" "cat" "sat"))
+
+(hk-test
+  "tokens strips punctuation"
+  (search-eval "\nresult = tokens \"Hello, World!\"\n" "result")
+  (list "hello" "world"))
+
+(hk-test
+  "tokens collapses whitespace"
+  (search-eval "\nresult = tokens \"  a   b  \"\n" "result")
+  (list "a" "b"))
+
+(hk-test
+  "tokens empty is empty"
+  (search-eval "\nresult = tokens \"\"\n" "result")
+  (list))
+
+(hk-test
+  "tokens keeps digits"
+  (search-eval "\nresult = tokens \"abc123 x9\"\n" "result")
+  (list "abc123" "x9"))
+
+(hk-test
+  "positioned attaches ordinals"
+  (search-eval "\nresult = positioned \"a b a\"\n" "result")
+  (list (list "a" 0) (list "b" 1) (list "a" 2)))
+
+(hk-test
+  "index + lookup single doc"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = lookupTerm \"cat\" (indexDoc 1 \"the cat sat\" emptyIndex)\n"
+    "result")
+  (list (list 1 (list 1))))
+
+(hk-test
+  "lookup missing term is empty"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = lookupTerm \"dog\" (indexDoc 1 \"the cat sat\" emptyIndex)\n"
+    "result")
+  (list))
+
+(hk-test
+  "lookup records all positions"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = lookupTerm \"the\" (indexDoc 1 \"the cat the dog the\" emptyIndex)\n"
+    "result")
+  (list (list 1 (list 0 2 4))))
+
+(hk-test
+  "multi-doc posting list sorted by docid"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = lookupTerm \"x\" (indexDoc 1 \"x y\" (indexDoc 2 \"x z\" emptyIndex))\n"
+    "result")
+  (list
+    (list 1 (list 0))
+    (list 2 (list 0))))
+
+(hk-test
+  "index/query case symmetry"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = lookupTerm \"cat\" (indexDoc 1 \"CAT Cat cat\" emptyIndex)\n"
+    "result")
+  (list (list 1 (list 0 1 2))))
+
+(hk-test
+  "re-index replaces a doc"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = lookupTerm \"a\" (indexDoc 1 \"a a a\" (indexDoc 1 \"a\" emptyIndex))\n"
+    "result")
+  (list (list 1 (list 0 1 2))))
+
+(hk-test
+  "delete removes a doc"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = lookupTerm \"cat\" (deleteDoc 1 (indexDoc 1 \"the cat\" emptyIndex))\n"
+    "result")
+  (list))
+
+(hk-test
+  "delete leaves other docs"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = lookupTerm \"cat\" (deleteDoc 2 (indexDoc 2 \"big cat\" (indexDoc 1 \"the cat\" emptyIndex)))\n"
+    "result")
+  (list (list 1 (list 1))))
+
+(hk-test
+  "docFreq counts docs"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = docFreq \"cat\" (indexDoc 2 \"a cat\" (indexDoc 1 \"the cat\" emptyIndex))\n"
+    "result")
+  2)
+
+(hk-test
+  "docFreq zero for missing"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = docFreq \"zzz\" (indexDoc 1 \"a b\" emptyIndex)\n"
+    "result")
+  0)
+
+(hk-test
+  "allTerms sorted and unique"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = allTerms (indexDoc 1 \"banana apple cherry apple\" emptyIndex)\n"
+    "result")
+  (list "apple" "banana" "cherry"))
+
+(hk-test
+  "allTerms merged across docs"
+  (search-eval
+    "\nresult = allTerms (indexDoc 2 \"d a\" (indexDoc 1 \"c b\" emptyIndex))\n"
+    "result")
+  (list "a" "b" "c" "d"))
+
+{:fail hk-test-fail :pass hk-test-pass :fails hk-test-fails}
diff --git a/lib/search/tokenize.sx b/lib/search/tokenize.sx
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..7c1d74d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/search/tokenize.sx
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+;; search tokenizer — Haskell source fragment.
+;; normalize (lowercase + strip punctuation), split on whitespace, attach positions.
+;; tokens :: String -> [String]
+;; positioned :: String -> [(String, Int)]  -- 0-based ordinal positions
+
+(define
+  search/tokenize-src
+  "lowerChar c = chr (toLower (ord c))\nnormChar c = if isAlphaNum c then lowerChar c else ' '\nisBlankCh c = c == ' '\ndropBlanks [] = []\ndropBlanks (c:cs) = if isBlankCh c then dropBlanks cs else c:cs\ntakeWord [] = []\ntakeWord (c:cs) = if isBlankCh c then [] else c : takeWord cs\nafterWord [] = []\nafterWord (c:cs) = if isBlankCh c then c:cs else afterWord cs\nsplitWords s = let s2 = dropBlanks s in if null s2 then [] else takeWord s2 : splitWords (afterWord s2)\nappendStr a b = a ++ b\njoinChars cs = foldr appendStr \"\" cs\ntokens s = map joinChars (splitWords (map normChar s))\nposFrom i [] = []\nposFrom i (x:xs) = (x, i) : posFrom (i + 1) xs\npositioned s = posFrom 0 (tokens s)\n")
diff --git a/plans/search-on-sx.md b/plans/search-on-sx.md
index 9e0045d4..1baf6e9a 100644
--- a/plans/search-on-sx.md
+++ b/plans/search-on-sx.md
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ extension that merges per-peer indices.
 
 ## Status (rolling)
 
-`bash lib/search/conformance.sh` → **0/0** (not yet started)
+`bash lib/search/conformance.sh` → **18/18** (Phase 1 complete)
 
 ## Ground rules
 
@@ -61,15 +61,18 @@ lib/search/index.sx                     lib/search/eval.sx
 
 ## Phase 1 — Tokenize + index
 
-- [ ] `lib/search/tokenize.sx` — normalize (lowercase, strip punctuation), split on
+- [x] `lib/search/tokenize.sx` — normalize (lowercase, strip punctuation), split on
   whitespace, return positions
-- [ ] `lib/search/index.sx` — inverted index data structure (typed `Map` from
-  haskell lib); `insert`, `delete`, `lookup`
-- [ ] `lib/search/api.sx` — `(search/index doc)`, `(search/lookup term)`
-- [ ] `lib/search/tests/index.sx` — 15+ cases: tokenize, insert + lookup, update,
-  delete, multi-doc
-- [ ] `lib/search/scoreboard.{json,md}`
-- [ ] `lib/search/conformance.sh`
+- [x] `lib/search/index.sx` — inverted index data structure; `indexDoc`, `deleteDoc`,
+  `lookupTerm`, `docFreq`, `allTerms`. (Data.Map's public API lacks
+  toList/keys/map/filter, so a sorted assoc-list `[(Term,[(DocId,[Pos])])]` is used —
+  the conceptual `Map Term [(DocId,[Pos])]` with free term iteration.)
+- [x] `lib/search/api.sx` — assembles `search/src` (tokenize + index); Haskell entry
+  points `indexDoc` / `lookupTerm`
+- [x] `lib/search/tests/index.sx` — 18 cases: tokenize, insert + lookup, update,
+  delete, multi-doc, positions, docFreq, allTerms
+- [x] `lib/search/scoreboard.{json,md}`
+- [x] `lib/search/conformance.sh`
 
 ## Phase 2 — Query AST + boolean evaluation
 
@@ -99,8 +102,19 @@ lib/search/index.sx                     lib/search/eval.sx
 
 ## Progress log
 
-(loop fills this in)
+- **Phase 1 complete (18/18).** Tokenizer (lowercase + strip punctuation + positions),
+  inverted index as sorted assoc-list `[(Term,[(DocId,[Pos])])]`, indexDoc/deleteDoc/
+  lookupTerm/docFreq/allTerms. Search lib is Haskell source assembled into `search/src`
+  and evaluated via the haskell-on-sx interpreter; tests reuse `hk-test` counters and a
+  `search-eval` helper that forces HK values to plain SX. conformance.sh models
+  lib/haskell (MODE=counters, COUNTERS_PASS/FAIL=hk-test-pass/fail).
 
 ## Blockers
 
-(loop fills this in)
+- **None.** Note: the box is heavily CPU-oversubscribed by sibling loop agents
+  (load ~11 on 2 cores); each program eval is ~10× slower than nominal, so suite
+  timeout is set to 600s. Runs are correct, just slow.
+- **Data.Map public API gap (informational, not fixing):** the haskell-on-sx
+  `import Data.Map` binds only empty/singleton/insert/lookup/member/size/null/delete/
+  insertWith/adjust/findWithDefault — no toList/keys/elems/map/filter/unionWith. Index
+  uses a pure assoc-list instead so term iteration and federation merge stay simple.