SearXNG search

OpenClaw supports SearXNG as a self-hosted, key-free

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

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

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

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

Config

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

Plugin-level settings for the SearXNG instance:

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

The

Transport rules:

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  https://
  works for public or private SearXNG hosts
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  http://
  is only accepted for trusted private-network or loopback hosts
• public SearXNG hosts must use
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  https://

Environment variable

Set

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

When

Plugin config reference

Notes

• JSON API -- uses SearXNG's native
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  format=json
  endpoint, not HTML scraping
• No API key -- works with any SearXNG instance out of the box
• Base URL validation --
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  baseUrl
  must be a valid
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  http://
  or
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  https://
  URL; public hosts must use
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  https://
• Auto-detection order -- SearXNG is checked last (order 200) in auto-detection. API-backed providers with configured keys run first, then DuckDuckGo (order 100), then Ollama Web Search (order 110)
• Self-hosted -- you control the instance, queries, and upstream search engines
• Categories default to
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  general
  when not configured

Related

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