QUESTION: does Houndarr only search Monitored items?

[Xenocell12]

I want to make sure this behavior is respected. For items I do not want monitored for searches or upgrades, I still keep them in the database so I can track them in case anything is accidentally deleted.

TL;DR: Does Houndarr only search for monitored movies and series?

If not, could an option be added to limit searches to monitored items only?

[av1155]

Yes. The missing and cutoff-unmet passes read /wanted/missing and /wanted/cutoff from your *arr with monitored=true, so unmonitored items never reach Houndarr. For Sonarr that means both the series and the episode have to be monitored, same as the Wanted tab in Sonarr's UI. The upgrade pass (off by default) reads the full library and applies the same monitored filter.

Unmonitored items stay in your *arr database untouched. Details: https://av1155.github.io/houndarr/docs/concepts/how-scheduling-works#monitored-vs-wanted