Serper Clone

Web search via a self-hosted Serper-compatible API (powered by SearXNG). Free, no rate limits, runs on your own infrastructure. Use for: web searches, news, images, videos, shopping, scholar, patents. Drop-in replacement for the Serper API.

Serper Clone Skill

Web search using a self-hosted Serper-compatible API. Uses SearXNG as the search backend with a lightweight bridge that exposes the familiar Serper API format.

Why Self-Hosted Search?

• Free & unlimited — no API quotas, no per-query costs
• Private — queries never leave your infrastructure
• No rate limits — search as much as you need
• Drop-in compatible — same API format as serper.dev

Setup

1. Deploy a Serper Clone Instance

You need a running instance of the Serper Clone API. Options:

• StartOS (recommended for home servers): Install from serper-startos
• Docker: See the serper-startos README for Docker deployment
• Any SearXNG + bridge setup that exposes a Serper-compatible API

After deployment, note your:

• Base URL (e.g., https://search.example.com or http://192.168.1.50:8080)
• API key (configured during setup)

2. Configure the Skill

Create the API key file:

bash

echo "API_KEY=your-api-key-here" > ~/.openclaw/workspace/.serper-clone-api-key
echo "BASE_URL=https://your-serper-clone-host" >> ~/.openclaw/workspace/.serper-clone-api-key
chmod 600 ~/.openclaw/workspace/.serper-clone-api-key

The skill will not activate until this file exists.

Endpoints

All endpoints accept POST requests with a JSON body.

Endpoint	Description
/search	General web search
/news	News articles
/images	Image search
/videos	Video search
/places	Local places/businesses
/maps	Maps/location search
/shopping	Shopping results
/scholar	Academic papers
/patents	Patent search
/autocomplete	Query autocomplete suggestions

Usage

Reading Configuration

bash

API_KEY=$(grep '^API_KEY=' ~/.openclaw/workspace/.serper-clone-api-key | cut -d'=' -f2)
BASE_URL=$(grep '^BASE_URL=' ~/.openclaw/workspace/.serper-clone-api-key | cut -d'=' -f2)

Web Search

bash

curl -s -X POST "$BASE_URL/search" \
  -H "X-API-KEY: $API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q": "search query", "num": 10}' | jq .

Search Parameters

json

{
  "q": "search query",          // Required: search terms
  "gl": "us",                   // Country code
  "hl": "en",                   // Language code
  "num": 10,                    // Number of results (1-100)
  "page": 1,                    // Result page number
  "autocorrect": true,          // Enable/disable spell correction
  "location": "Austin, Texas"   // Location hint
}

Response Format

json

{
  "searchParameters": { "q": "...", "gl": "us", "hl": "en", "num": 10 },
  "organic": [
    {
      "title": "Result Title",
      "link": "https://example.com",
      "snippet": "Description of the result...",
      "position": 1,
      "date": "2026-02-16T00:00:00"
    }
  ],
  "answerBox": { "answer": "...", "snippet": "..." },
  "relatedSearches": [ { "query": "related search" } ],
  "credits": 0
}

News Search

bash

curl -s -X POST "$BASE_URL/news" \
  -H "X-API-KEY: $API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q": "latest AI news", "num": 5}'

Image Search

bash

curl -s -X POST "$BASE_URL/images" \
  -H "X-API-KEY: $API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q": "neural network architecture diagram"}'

Scholarly Articles

bash

curl -s -X POST "$BASE_URL/scholar" \
  -H "X-API-KEY: $API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q": "mixture of experts transformer", "num": 10}'

Helper Function

For convenience in shell scripts:

bash

serper_search() {
  local endpoint="${1:-search}"
  local query="$2"
  local num="${3:-10}"
  local api_key=$(grep '^API_KEY=' ~/.openclaw/workspace/.serper-clone-api-key | cut -d'=' -f2)
  local base_url=$(grep '^BASE_URL=' ~/.openclaw/workspace/.serper-clone-api-key | cut -d'=' -f2)

  curl -s -X POST "$base_url/$endpoint" \
    -H "X-API-KEY: $api_key" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d "{\"q\": \"$query\", \"num\": $num}"
}

# Examples:
# serper_search search "OpenClaw agent framework" 10
# serper_search news "AI releases 2026" 5
# serper_search scholar "large language models" 10

Security Notes

• The API key file should be chmod 600 (owner-read only)
• All requests stay between your OpenClaw instance and your Serper Clone instance
• No data is sent to any third-party service
• The skill only activates when the API key file exists

Related

• Serper Clone server: github.com/paulscode/serper-startos
• SearXNG: github.com/searxng/searxng — the search backend