diff --git a/.changeset/search-hit-without-description.md b/.changeset/search-hit-without-description.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..b60b65da5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/search-hit-without-description.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+'@doc-kit/generator-react': patch
+---
+
+Fix the search modal crashing with `Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'split')` when a hit has no description, such as headings without a leading paragraph in the generated `orama-db.json` index.
diff --git a/packages/react/src/html/ui/utils/__tests__/renderLabel.test.mjs b/packages/react/src/html/ui/utils/__tests__/renderLabel.test.mjs
index e95b890cc..c77f8fc05 100644
--- a/packages/react/src/html/ui/utils/__tests__/renderLabel.test.mjs
+++ b/packages/react/src/html/ui/utils/__tests__/renderLabel.test.mjs
@@ -35,6 +35,11 @@ const { renderLabel } = await import(renderLabelModule);
 process.once('exit', () => rm(output, { recursive: true, force: true }));
 
 describe('renderLabel', () => {
+  it('returns the label unchanged when it is not a string', () => {
+    assert.equal(renderLabel(undefined), undefined);
+    assert.equal(renderLabel(''), '');
+  });
+
   it('does not render elements for empty segments', () => {
     const result = renderLabel('`value`');
 
diff --git a/packages/react/src/html/ui/utils/renderLabel.jsx b/packages/react/src/html/ui/utils/renderLabel.jsx
index 8b89bb924..aff29dfe1 100644
--- a/packages/react/src/html/ui/utils/renderLabel.jsx
+++ b/packages/react/src/html/ui/utils/renderLabel.jsx
@@ -5,10 +5,15 @@
  * a case where'd have extremely complex markdown
  * within a sidebar like this)
  *
- * @param {string} label - Raw heading text.
+ * @param {string | undefined} label - Raw heading text. Search hits have no
+ * label for documents without a leading paragraph.
  * @returns {import('preact').ComponentChildren}
  */
 export const renderLabel = label => {
+  if (!label) {
+    return label;
+  }
+
   const segments = label.split('`');
 
   if (segments.length === 1) {