# Checking if updated documents are visible to search

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/checking-if-updated-documents-are-visible-to-search/383843>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [December 3, 2025, 11:05am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/checking-if-updated-documents-are-visible-to-search/383843 "2025-12-03T11:05:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![RainTown](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/raintown/32/140206_2.png) [@RainTown](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/RainTown)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 12:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/checking-if-updated-documents-are-visible-to-search/383843/3 "2025-12-03T12:15:39Z")

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Parallel discussion on SOF and here!

> [@dadoonet](#):
>
> As you are holding a temporal list of inserted documents on your side you can also `_search` for the latest document every x seconds and once the number of hits is 1, you can assume that the `_refresh` has happened.

You can only assume a `_refresh` has happened on at least one shard. This is effectively same as this observation

> [@Mo\_B](#):
>
> Searching for a document and finding the up-to-date version doesn’t guarantee that a subsequent search is not routed to a replica shard that still holds a stale version.

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_[View the full topic](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/checking-if-updated-documents-are-visible-to-search/383843)._