openclaw/docs/tools/searxng-search.md

summary	read_when	title
SearXNG web search -- self-hosted, key-free meta-search provider	You want a self-hosted web search provider You want to use SearXNG for web_search You need a privacy-focused or air-gapped search option	SearXNG Search

SearXNG Search

OpenClaw supports SearXNG as a self-hosted, key-free web_search provider. SearXNG is an open-source meta-search engine that aggregates results from Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and other sources.

Advantages:

• Free and unlimited -- no API key or commercial subscription required
• Privacy / air-gap -- queries never leave your network
• Works anywhere -- no region restrictions on commercial search APIs

Setup

```bash docker run -d -p 8888:8080 searxng/searxng ```

Or use any existing SearXNG deployment you have access to. See the
[SearXNG documentation](https://docs.searxng.org/) for production setup.

```bash openclaw configure --section web # Select "searxng" as the provider ```

Or set the env var and let auto-detection find it:

```bash
export SEARXNG_BASE_URL="http://localhost:8888"
```

Config

{
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        provider: "searxng",
      },
    },
  },
}

Plugin-level settings for the SearXNG instance:

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      searxng: {
        config: {
          webSearch: {
            baseUrl: "http://localhost:8888",
            categories: "general,news", // optional
            language: "en", // optional
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

The baseUrl field also accepts SecretRef objects.

Environment variable

Set SEARXNG_BASE_URL as an alternative to config:

export SEARXNG_BASE_URL="http://localhost:8888"

When SEARXNG_BASE_URL is set and no explicit provider is configured, auto-detection picks SearXNG automatically (at the lowest priority -- any API-backed provider with a key wins first).

Plugin config reference

Field	Description
baseUrl	Base URL of your SearXNG instance (required)
categories	Comma-separated categories such as general, news, or science
language	Language code for results such as en, de, or fr

Notes

• JSON API -- uses SearXNG's native format=json endpoint, not HTML scraping
• No API key -- works with any SearXNG instance out of the box
• Auto-detection order -- SearXNG is checked last (order 200) in auto-detection, so any API-backed provider with a key takes priority over SearXNG, and SearXNG sits behind DuckDuckGo (order 100) as well
• Self-hosted -- you control the instance, queries, and upstream search engines
• Categories default to general when not configured

For SearXNG JSON API to work, make sure your SearXNG instance has the `json` format enabled in its `settings.yml` under `search.formats`.

Related

• Web Search overview -- all providers and auto-detection
• DuckDuckGo Search -- another key-free fallback
• Brave Search -- structured results with free tier