searxng-web-search

Search the web using a self-hosted SearXNG metasearch engine. Use when the user asks to search the web, find information online, look up recent news, research a topic, or needs current data from the internet. Also use when the agent needs to gather external context to answer a question. Requires a running SearXNG instance with JSON API enabled.

Privacy-respecting web search skill powered by SearXNG, a free metasearch engine that aggregates results from 243+ search services without tracking users.

Rewritten from PulseBot's built-in web search skill to use SearXNG as the backend, packaged as a standalone agentskills.io skill.

Prerequisites

1. A running SearXNG instance (self-hosted or accessible endpoint)
2. JSON format must be enabled in your SearXNG settings.yml:

yaml

search:
  formats:
    - html
    - json

3. Python requests library installed

Configuration

The skill uses environment variables for configuration:

Variable	Default	Description
SEARXNG_BASE_URL	http://localhost:8080	SearXNG instance URL
SEARXNG_MAX_RESULTS	10	Maximum results to return
SEARXNG_LANGUAGE	all	Default search language (e.g. en, zh, all)
SEARXNG_SAFESEARCH	0	Safe search level: 0=off, 1=moderate, 2=strict
SEARXNG_TIMEOUT	15	Request timeout in seconds
SEARXNG_CATEGORIES	general	Default categories (comma-separated)

Usage

Run the search script:

bash

python scripts/searxng_search.py "your search query"

With options:

bash

python scripts/searxng_search.py "latest AI news" \
  --categories news \
  --language en \
  --time-range day \
  --max-results 5

Output Format

The script outputs JSON to stdout with the following structure:

json

{
  "query": "search query",
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "Result Title",
      "url": "https://example.com",
      "snippet": "Text snippet from the page...",
      "engines": ["google", "bing"],
      "score": 9.0,
      "category": "general",
      "published_date": "2025-01-01T00:00:00"
    }
  ],
  "suggestions": ["related query 1", "related query 2"],
  "answers": ["direct answer if available"],
  "total_results": 10,
  "error": null
}

If an error occurs, results will be empty and error will contain the message.

As a Python Module

You can also import and use the search function directly:

python

from scripts.searxng_search import SearXNGSearchTool

tool = SearXNGSearchTool(base_url="http://localhost:8080")
results = tool.search("quantum computing", categories="science,it", max_results=5)

for r in results["results"]:
    print(f"[{r['title']}]({r['url']})")
    print(f"  {r['snippet']}")

Integration with PulseBot

To register this skill in PulseBot, place it under skills/ and PulseBot will discover it via SKILL.md frontmatter. The Python script can also be called as a tool function by wrapping it:

python

from skills.searxng_web_search.scripts.searxng_search import SearXNGSearchTool

tool = SearXNGSearchTool()

def web_search(query: str, categories: str = "general", max_results: int = 10) -> str:
    """Search the web using SearXNG. Returns JSON results."""
    result = tool.search(query, categories=categories, max_results=max_results)
    return json.dumps(result, indent=2)

Edge Cases

• If SearXNG is unreachable, the script returns a structured error with error field set
• If no results are found, results is an empty list (not an error)
• Some engines may be unresponsive; check unresponsive_engines in verbose mode
• Rate-limited public instances may return 429; prefer self-hosted instances
• Queries with special characters are URL-encoded automatically

SearXNG Setup (Quick Start)

For details on deploying SearXNG, see references/REFERENCE.md.

bash

docker run -d --name searxng -p 8080:8080 \
  -v "$(pwd)/searxng:/etc/searxng" \
  searxng/searxng:latest

Then edit /etc/searxng/settings.yml to add json to search.formats.