Search tolerance is a policy, not proof that two official names are interchangeable. Agree whether accents and case may be ignored for finding candidates, while preserving the source spelling in display and records. This differs from adding synonyms: cafe and café can be a comparison choice, not a new meaning expansion.
Who should use this acceptance brief
Bilingual catalogues with accented product or place names. Use this as a scoped website handover task. Where real system evidence is required, teaching examples are not a substitute.
Source-bound platform fact
Intl.Collator provides locale-sensitive comparison with options such as search usage and sensitivity. Results depend on the locale and chosen comparison policy. MDN: Intl.Collator · Checked 16 October 2026.
Filled teaching example
Synthetic example, not a client case. Finite inputs, expected decisions and counterexamples follow; no live integration is claimed.
On narrow screens, scroll to read the complete table.
| Input / case | Check basis | Expected decision |
|---|---|---|
| cafe vs café, en base | accent-insensitive | equivalent in model |
| resume vs résumé | different business meanings possible | owner review |
| catalogue vs catalog | not an accent rule | not equal |
Run the acceptance exercise
- Approve positive and negative query pairs in each supported language.
- Test a locale-aware comparison without altering stored product names.
- Evaluate result relevance and preserve the exact comparison policy/version.
Interpret the result and retain evidence
The offline function compares supplied strings under an explicit English search policy. It does not rank results, translate names or provide a complete multilingual search engine. A technical equality result can still be a poor business match, so the resume example remains a human policy decision rather than an automatic recommendation.
Limits before implementation
No synonym rules, old product names or live search indexes are changed. Unknown language requirements need separate examples.
Replay the finite example
Save both files in one folder and run with Node22.13 or newer. The example sends no network requests and changes no account or site. Filled inputs and expected outputs · Inspectable functions
node decision-check.mjs catalogue-accent-search-policy.json