<2-3 sentences summarising what the project addresses and solves, the target audience, and the benefit.> This project provides a self-hosted web search capability for AI agents, addressing the cost and privacy concerns associated with commercial search APIs. It enables AI agents like OpenClaw, Claude Code, and Antigravity to perform web searches locally without API keys or data leakage, offering a private and free alternative.

How It Works

ask-search integrates with SearxNG, a self-hosted meta-search engine that aggregates results from over 70 sources including Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. This architecture bypasses the need for individual API keys and centralizes search queries on user-controlled infrastructure, ensuring data privacy and eliminating per-query costs. The core advantage is a fully private, zero-cost web search backend for AI agents.

Quick Start & Requirements

• Primary install / run command: git clone https://github.com/ythx-101/ask-search, cd ask-search, bash install.sh, then ask-search "query". Docker Compose is recommended for full setup.
• Non-default prerequisites and dependencies: A running SearxNG instance (Docker recommended), Python 3.8+. For MCP integration, pip install mcp.
• Estimated setup time or resource footprint: "30-second version" if SearxNG is already running. Full setup involves cloning, configuring SearxNG (via Docker Compose), and installing ask-search.
• Links: Official quick-start is within the README. SearxNG Docker Compose details are in searxng/docker-compose.yml within the repo.

Highlighted Details

• Enables zero-cost, private web search for AI agents.
• Direct integration with OpenClaw, Claude Code, Antigravity, and any CLI.
• Supports filtering search results by categories (e.g., news) and language.
• Provides raw JSON output for programmatic consumption.
• Includes detailed strategies for overcoming content access limitations (bot detection, paywalls) when performing deep dives into search results.

Maintenance & Community

No specific details on contributors, sponsorships, or community channels (e.g., Discord, Slack) are provided in the README.

Licensing & Compatibility

• License type: MIT.
• Compatibility notes: Permissive MIT license generally allows for commercial use and integration with closed-source projects.

Limitations & Caveats

The project relies on a pre-configured SearxNG instance. While search queries are private, directly fetching full content from certain websites (e.g., Reddit, Zhihu, Medium) after obtaining search results can be blocked by bot detection or paywalls, necessitating advanced workarounds like SOCKS proxies, headless browsers, or leveraging archive caches. Some sites may still detect headless browser usage.