searxng-bangs

What this skill does

# SearXNG Search

Privacy-respecting metasearch engine that anonymizes searches and aggregates results from 250+ engines.

## Quick Start

Search the web using the bundled script:

```bash
python3 scripts/search.py "your query"
```

Returns JSON with titles, URLs, and content snippets.

## Common Workflows

### Basic Web Search

```bash
python3 scripts/search.py "OpenClaw AI agent" --num 5
```

### News Search

```bash
python3 scripts/search.py "latest tech news" --categories news
```

### Localized Search

```bash
python3 scripts/search.py "Python Tutorial" --lang de
```

### Multi-Category Search

```bash
python3 scripts/search.py "machine learning" --categories general,science --num 10
```

### Bang Searches (Direct Engine)

```bash
# Wikipedia
python3 scripts/search.py "Albert Einstein" --bang w

# YouTube
python3 scripts/search.py "python tutorial" --bang yt

# GitHub
python3 scripts/search.py "openclaw" --bang gh

# Reddit
python3 scripts/search.py "best laptop 2026" --bang r
```

Bangs are more granular than categories and search directly on specific engines.

## Privacy Features

SearXNG protects your privacy through multiple layers:

1. **Randomized Browser Fingerprints** - Generates a new fake browser profile for each search query (version, OS, screen resolution, language)
2. **IP Masking** - Search engines see the SearXNG instance IP, not yours
3. **No Cookies** - Never forwards cookies to external search engines
4. **No Referrer** - Target websites don't see which search engine referred you
5. **Optional Tor/Proxy** - Can route all queries through Tor for additional anonymity

**Result:** Search engines cannot build a profile about you.

## When to Use

**Prefer SearXNG for:**
- Privacy-sensitive searches (no tracking, no profiling)
- High-volume searches (no rate limits)
- When self-hosted infrastructure is available
- Multi-engine result aggregation (250+ engines)
- Ad-free results

**Prefer Brave API (`web_search` tool) for:**
- Faster response times
- Structured data requirements
- When external APIs are acceptable

## Processing Results

The script returns clean JSON that's easy to parse and present:

```python
import json
import subprocess

result = subprocess.run(
    ['python3', 'scripts/search.py', 'query', '--num', '5'],
    capture_output=True,
    text=True
)

data = json.loads(result.stdout)
for item in data['results']:
    print(f"Title: {item['title']}")
    print(f"URL: {item['url']}")
    print(f"Snippet: {item['content']}")
    print()
```

## Advanced Options

See `references/api.md` for:
- All available categories
- Engine-specific searches
- Language codes
- Error handling
- Comparison with Brave Search API

## Configuration

### SearXNG Instance

By default, the script uses `http://127.0.0.1:8080`. Configure via environment variable:

```bash
export SEARXNG_URL=http://your-searxng-instance.com
python3 scripts/search.py "query"
```

**Options:**
- Self-hosted instance (recommended for privacy)
- Public instances: https://searx.space (community-run servers)

### Using Public Instances

If you don't run your own SearXNG:

```bash
# Example with public instance
export SEARXNG_URL=https://searx.be
python3 scripts/search.py "query"
```

**Note:** Public instances may have rate limits or be slower than self-hosted.

## Technical Details

- **Default URL:** `http://127.0.0.1:8080` (override with `SEARXNG_URL`)
- **Method:** HTML parsing (JSON API often disabled for CSRF protection)
- **Parser:** Custom HTMLParser in `scripts/search.py`
- **Timeout:** 15 seconds
- **Result Format:** Clean JSON with title, URL, content