diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 82f7726..bea679e 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -351,9 +351,11 @@ This launches a local web UI (typically at `http://localhost:5173`) where you ca
 `openproject_search_meetings`, `openproject_search_wiki_pages`, and `openproject_search_work_packages` rank results by relevance instead of returning a flat list. They accept `matchMode: "fuzzy" | "exact"` (default `"fuzzy"`):
 
 - **`fuzzy`** (default) tolerates typos, reordered words, and partial/natural-language phrasing (e.g. "budget aproval", "what did we decide about hiring"). Results are ranked and each one carries a `score` (0..1 relevance) and `matchedFields` (which fields matched, highest-scoring first); work package and wiki page results also carry a `snippet` excerpt.
-- **`exact`** restores literal case-insensitive substring matching, byte for byte equivalent to this project's pre-fuzzy search behavior.
+- **`exact`** restores literal case-insensitive substring matching, byte for byte equivalent to this project's pre-fuzzy search behavior. Exact mode still searches descriptions, comments, and agenda content — it changes *how* text is matched, not *what* is searched.
 
-`openproject_list_work_package_activities` similarly accepts an optional `query`/`matchMode` pair to rank the activities it already fetched, at no extra API cost. `openproject_list_work_packages` is unchanged — it remains a plain filter tool (`subject` substring match only, no ranking), kept deliberately separate from the ranked `openproject_search_work_packages` tool.
+On every search tool, `offset` is a **1-based page number**, not an item index: with `pageSize: 20`, `offset: 2` returns results 21-40. Ranked results are returned under `elements`.
+
+`openproject_list_work_package_activities` similarly accepts an optional `query`/`matchMode` pair, applied to the activities it already fetched at no extra API cost. Note that `query` **filters as well as ranks**: activities scoring below the relevance threshold are dropped, so the response is a relevant subset of the timeline rather than the full history reordered. Omit `query` to retrieve the complete activity list. `openproject_list_work_packages` is unchanged — it remains a plain filter tool (`subject` substring match only, no ranking), kept deliberately separate from the ranked `openproject_search_work_packages` tool.
 
 ### Projects
 - `openproject_list_projects`: List projects with pagination (`offset`, `pageSize`), sorting (`sortBy`), and filtering.
@@ -362,7 +364,7 @@ This launches a local web UI (typically at `http://localhost:5173`) where you ca
 ### Work Packages & Activities
 - `openproject_list_work_packages`: Query work packages with high-level filters (`projectId`, `status`, `typeId`, `assigneeId`, `priorityId`, `subject`, `pageSize`, `offset`) or custom JSON filter expressions.
 - `openproject_get_work_package`: Retrieve detailed information for a specific work package by ID (`workPackageId: 38`), including description, type, status, priority, author, dates, parent, and children.
-- `openproject_list_work_package_activities`: Retrieve timeline history, field change logs, and discussions for a work package (`workPackageId: 38`), with optional `onlyComments` filtering and optional `query`/`matchMode` relevance ranking.
+- `openproject_list_work_package_activities`: Retrieve timeline history, field change logs, and discussions for a work package (`workPackageId: 38`), with optional `onlyComments` filtering and an optional `query`/`matchMode` pair that filters the timeline to relevant entries and ranks them (non-matching activities are omitted).
 - `openproject_search_work_packages`: Ranked fuzzy search across work package subjects, descriptions, and comments (`query: "budget aproval"`, optional `projectId`, `status`, `matchMode`, `offset`, `pageSize`). Returns `score`, `matchedFields`, and a `snippet` per result, plus `degraded`/`enrichmentFailures` if some deep content couldn't be fetched.
 
 ### Meetings
diff --git a/docs/DECISIONS.md b/docs/DECISIONS.md
index 0a3a67a..8a4b477 100644
--- a/docs/DECISIONS.md
+++ b/docs/DECISIONS.md
@@ -525,8 +525,11 @@ only, and work package search matched subjects only.
 6. **No standalone activities search tool**, because OpenProject exposes
    activities only per work package. Comment text enters the work package deep
    phase instead. `openproject_list_work_package_activities` gained an optional
-   `query`/`matchMode` pair that ranks the activities it already fetched
-   client-side, at no extra API cost.
+   `query`/`matchMode` pair that filters and ranks the activities it already
+   fetched client-side, at no extra API cost. It applies the same
+   `DEFAULT_MIN_SCORE` gate as every other ranked surface, so a query narrows
+   the returned timeline to relevant entries rather than reordering the full
+   history; omitting `query` returns the complete list.
 
 ### Consequences
 
@@ -547,6 +550,21 @@ only, and work package search matched subjects only.
   section 6.2).
 - Scoring constants are tuning parameters. `tests/search/recall.test.ts` is
   the acceptance test that governs them.
+- Search response envelopes carry ranked results under `elements` only. The
+  duplicate `items` alias that non-search list functions still return is
+  omitted from `MeetingSearchPage` and `WorkPackageSearchPage`, because the
+  tool layer JSON-stringifies the whole envelope and shipping the same array
+  twice doubled the token cost of every search response.
+- `offset` on both search pages is a 1-based page number, matching the tool
+  schemas and the OpenProject API. This corrected `openproject_search_meetings`,
+  which previously sliced from item index `offset - 1` and returned a page
+  overlapping the previous one by all but a single result.
+- The candidate union for work package search runs both legs in every match
+  mode. Restricting exact mode to the server-side `subject ~` filter made
+  description- and comment-only matches unreachable precisely for the literal
+  strings (error codes, ticket refs, commit SHAs) that exact mode exists for.
+  Both legs page the candidate window in batches of 100 up to the 250 cap,
+  since OpenProject enforces a server-side maximum page size.
 
 
 
diff --git a/src/tools/work-packages.ts b/src/tools/work-packages.ts
index 9f021e5..4dee114 100644
--- a/src/tools/work-packages.ts
+++ b/src/tools/work-packages.ts
@@ -185,8 +185,11 @@ export const listWorkPackageActivitiesShape = {
     .string()
     .optional()
     .describe(
-      "Optional search text to rank activities by relevance. Matched against " +
-        "comment text and change details; tolerates typos."
+      "Optional search text. FILTERS the activity list down to relevant " +
+        "entries and ranks them by relevance — activities that do not match " +
+        "are omitted, so the returned timeline is not the complete history. " +
+        "Omit this parameter to get the full, unfiltered list. Matched " +
+        "against comment text and change details; tolerates typos."
     ),
   matchMode: z
     .enum(["fuzzy", "exact"])
@@ -227,7 +230,7 @@ export const listWorkPackageActivitiesTool: ToolDefinition<
 > = {
   name: "openproject_list_work_package_activities",
   description:
-    "Retrieve timeline activities and comments for a work package. Can optionally filter to only include user comments.",
+    "Retrieve timeline activities and comments for a work package. Can optionally filter to only include user comments. Supplying 'query' filters the timeline to relevant entries and ranks them, rather than reordering the full history.",
   parameters: listWorkPackageActivitiesShape,
   readOnly: true,
   execute: handleListWorkPackageActivities,
diff --git a/tests/work-package-activities.test.ts b/tests/work-package-activities.test.ts
index a5bdab4..f8c4bf8 100644
--- a/tests/work-package-activities.test.ts
+++ b/tests/work-package-activities.test.ts
@@ -2,6 +2,10 @@ import { describe, expect, test } from "bun:test";
 import { OpenProjectClient } from "../src/client/api-client.ts";
 import { runWithContext, type RequestContext } from "../src/context.ts";
 import { listWorkPackageActivities } from "../src/services/work-packages.ts";
+import {
+  listWorkPackageActivitiesShape,
+  listWorkPackageActivitiesTool,
+} from "../src/tools/work-packages.ts";
 
 describe("Work Package Activities Service", () => {
   test("parses activities and separates comments from field changes", async () => {
@@ -204,3 +208,55 @@ describe("Activity Ranking", () => {
     expect(result).toHaveLength(0);
   });
 });
+
+describe("Work Package Activities query documentation", () => {
+  /**
+   * `query` does not merely reorder the timeline — rankRecords drops
+   * everything below DEFAULT_MIN_SCORE. A model told the parameter "ranks"
+   * will reason over a silently truncated history, so the schema and the tool
+   * description must both say that it filters.
+   */
+  test("the query parameter is documented as filtering, not only ranking", () => {
+    const description = listWorkPackageActivitiesShape.query.description ?? "";
+    expect(description.toLowerCase()).toContain("filter");
+    expect(description.toLowerCase()).toMatch(/not the complete history|are omitted/);
+  });
+
+  test("the tool description warns that a query narrows the timeline", () => {
+    expect(listWorkPackageActivitiesTool.description.toLowerCase()).toContain("filters");
+  });
+
+  test("a query really does drop non-matching activities", async () => {
+    const client = {
+      get: async () => ({
+        _type: "Collection",
+        _embedded: {
+          elements: [
+            {
+              id: 1,
+              version: 1,
+              createdAt: "2026-09-10T00:00:00Z",
+              comment: { raw: "Renewed the expired TLS certificate" },
+              _links: { user: { href: "/api/v3/users/4", title: "Admin" } },
+            },
+            {
+              id: 2,
+              version: 2,
+              createdAt: "2026-09-11T00:00:00Z",
+              comment: { raw: "Merged the dependency bump" },
+              _links: { user: { href: "/api/v3/users/5", title: "Dev" } },
+            },
+          ],
+        },
+      }),
+    } as unknown as OpenProjectClient;
+
+    const all = await listWorkPackageActivities({ workPackageId: 1 }, client);
+    const filtered = await listWorkPackageActivities(
+      { workPackageId: 1, query: "TLS certificate" },
+      client
+    );
+    expect(all).toHaveLength(2);
+    expect(filtered.map((a) => a.id)).toEqual([1]);
+  });
+});