Web Search

Free web search using DuckDuckGo's Instant Answer API. No API key required.

Quick Start

# Basic search
cd /home/hxx/clawd/tools && ./web-search.sh "your query"

# Examples
./web-search.sh "what is artificial intelligence"
./web-search.sh "python programming"
./web-search.sh "define recursion"
./web-search.sh "2+2"

Command-Line Options

Core Options

• -h, --help - Display help message with usage examples
• --format <format> - Output format: text, markdown, plain (default: text)
  • text: Colored terminal output (default)
  • markdown: Clean markdown format (no ANSI colors)
  • plain: Plain text without colors
• --no-color - Disable colored output (same as --format plain)
• --max-related <N> - Control number of related topics to show (default: 5)
• --quiet - Minimal output mode (just results, no headers/footer)

Output to File

Use shell redirection to save results to file:

# Save to file
./web-search.sh "query" > output.txt

# With markdown format
./web-search.sh --format markdown "query" > results.md

# With no colors for logs
./web-search.sh --no-color "query" > search.log

What It Returns

The tool provides several result types:

• Answers - Direct answers for calculations, conversions, weather, etc.
• Abstracts - Wikipedia-style summaries with source and URL
• Definitions - Word/term definitions
• Related Topics - Additional relevant results (configurable, 5 default)

Best Practices

1. Be specific - More specific queries get better instant answers
2. Try variations - If no results, rephrase your query
3. Use for facts - Definitions, calculations, quick lookups work best
4. Check URL - Always provides DuckDuckGo link for full search
5. Use appropriate format:
   • Terminal output: --format text (colored, default)
   • Documentation: --format markdown > file.md`
   • Logs/piping: --format plain or --no-color

Limitations

• No full web search results (only instant answers)
• Some queries return limited results depending on DuckDuckGo's data
• Character encoding issues in some abstracts (known limitation)
• Requires internet access to query DuckDuckGo API
• Not all query types return instant answers (e.g., complex math like sqrt(144))
• Definitions may not always be available for all terms
• Recent news may not appear (DuckDuckGo focuses on evergreen content)

Usage Examples

Basic Search

# Simple query
./web-search.sh "open source AI models"

# Wikipedia-style query
./web-search.sh "what is recursion"

Markdown Format

# Clean markdown output
./web-search.sh --format markdown "python programming"

# Save to markdown file
./web-search.sh --format markdown "AI research" > research.md

Plain/No Color

# For logs or piping
./web-search.sh --format plain "search query"

# Disable colors explicitly
./web-search.sh --no-color "search query"