Elasticsearch reports total hits as 10000 with relation gte unless track_total_hits is set

Since 7.0 the search API stops counting matches once it has found 10000, so a response reports a total value of 10000 with a relation of gte rather than the true count. Interfaces that render a result count then display ten thousand for every large query, and the number looks suspiciously round rather than wrong.

Passing track_total_hits as true restores an exact count at the cost of visiting every matching document; it also accepts an integer to raise the threshold instead. This is separate from index.max_result_window, also 10000, which limits from plus size and raises "Result window is too large" beyond it. Deep pagination past that window should use search_after with a point-in-time id rather than a larger window, because from plus size makes every shard collect and sort that many hits, so cost grows with the page number.