searxng-web-search

What This Skill Does

The searxng-web-search skill empowers OpenClaw to perform real-time web searches by leveraging a self-hosted SearXNG instance. SearXNG is a privacy-respecting, metasearch engine that aggregates results from dozens of search services. By integrating this into OpenClaw, you gain the ability to fetch current news, find technical documentation, verify facts that fall outside of the agent's pre-trained knowledge cutoff, and browse updated resources. The skill handles the complexity of API interactions, rate limiting, and result formatting, providing a clean, ranked list of snippets, titles, and URLs directly in your workflow.

Installation

To integrate this skill into your OpenClaw environment, ensure you have the searxng-local-search package installed. Use the following command in your terminal:

clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/noblepayne/searxng-local-search

After installation, you must configure your instance by setting the SEARXNG_URL environment variable. If you are running locally, this is typically http://localhost:8888. Add export SEARXNG_URL="http://localhost:8888" to your shell profile to ensure persistence.

Use Cases

This tool is essential for tasks requiring temporal relevance. Use it when:

• You need to cross-reference current events or breaking news.
• You are debugging code and need the latest documentation or community-led solutions (e.g., GitHub issues or Stack Overflow threads).
• You are researching obscure topics that require aggregating information from multiple search engines to ensure coverage.
• You want to verify claims that were published after the agent's training data was compiled.

Example Prompts

1. "Search for the latest documentation on the latest release of the Babashka HTTP client and summarize the key changes."
2. "What are the current trends in AI agent research as of this week? Please provide sources."
3. "Find me a technical explanation for the 'SEARXNG_URL' connection timeout error and how to fix it in a Linux environment."

Tips & Limitations

• Rate Limiting: The skill includes a 1-second delay mechanism to prevent spamming your SearXNG instance. If you process many queries, consider this bottleneck.
• Filters: Use the JSON parameter argument to narrow down results by category (e.g., 'it' for technical queries) or time range (e.g., 'day' for breaking news) to increase signal-to-noise ratio.
• Privacy: Since this connects to your own SearXNG instance, the search history and metadata remain under your control, avoiding reliance on centralized proprietary search tracking.