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content_type=how-to

How-to

Procedural content: step-by-step instructions for accomplishing a task, as opposed to reference material explaining how something works.

Tutorials and guides. Useful for an agent that needs a procedure rather than a definition — and worth pairing with a recency preference, because procedures go stale faster than concepts.

How-to content is the type most vulnerable to version drift: the steps were correct once and the interface has since changed. A publication-date bound is more useful here than almost anywhere else, and `docs` is the better first query when an official procedure exists.

What this covers

  • tutorials
  • setup guides
  • walkthroughs

Example

content_type=how-tobash
curl -H "x-api-key: $UNLOB_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.unlob.com/search?q=your+query&content_type[]=how-to&limit=10"

Common questions

What is the how-to content type?

Procedural content: step-by-step instructions for accomplishing a task, as opposed to reference material explaining how something works.

How do I search only how-to?

Set content_type[]=how-to on any search request. Content type is assigned at index time from page structure and markup rather than guessed from the URL, so the filter is reliable.

When is the how-to filter worth using?

How-to content is the type most vulnerable to version drift: the steps were correct once and the interface has since changed. A publication-date bound is more useful here than almost anywhere else, and `docs` is the better first query when an official procedure exists.

Filter by what a page is

Content type is assigned at index time from structure, not guessed from the URL — so the filter does what it says.

API and MCP reference ↗