Private Web Search (SearXNG)

Privacy-respecting, self-hosted metasearch engine for AI agents.

Quick Setup

# If container exists but stopped:
docker start searxng

# Or fresh start:
docker run -d --name searxng -p 8080:8080 -e BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080/ --restart unless-stopped searxng/searxng

# Enable JSON API (only needed once)
docker exec searxng sed -i 's/  formats:/  formats:\n    - json/' /etc/searxng/settings.yml
docker restart searxng

# Verify
curl -s "http://localhost:8080/search?q=test&format=json&engines=bing&num_results=1" | python3 -c "import sys,json; d=json.load(sys.stdin); print(f\"Results: {d.get('number_of_results',0)}\")"

## Usage

### Basic Search

```bash
curl -sL "http://localhost:8080/search?q=YOUR_QUERY&format=json" | jq '.results[:10]'

Using the Helper Script

./scripts/search.sh "openclaw ai" 5

Environment Variables

Working Engines (Tested June 2026)

85 engines enabled by default, but most major engines are blocked or rate-limited:

Multi-Engine Queries (Recommended)

Combine multiple working engines for best results:

# Get combined results from Bing + GitHub + Stack Overflow
curl -s "http://localhost:8080/search?q=python&format=json&engines=bing,github,stackoverflow&num_results=10"

This returns 40+ results with diverse sources (web, code, Q&A).

Why Most Engines Fail

• Google/DuckDuckGo: Detect automated traffic, return CAPTCHA/403 errors
• Public instances: Get IP-banned quickly due to high volume
• Self-hosted: Slightly better but still rate-limited
• Bing: Most permissive, works reliably

Note: Engine status changes frequently. Test with &num_results=5 to verify before heavy use.

Management

docker start searxng   # Start
docker stop searxng    # Stop
docker logs searxng    # View logs
docker rm searxng -f   # Remove

Troubleshooting