ketch

ketch

A stateless CLI for web search, code search, library docs, and scraping — one binary, no daemon, no API server to run.

Why ketch

Most research tooling for agents means wiring up several provider SDKs, each with its own auth and response shape. ketch collapses that into one binary with three research surfaces:

• ketch search — web search (Brave, DuckDuckGo, SearXNG, or Exa)
• ketch code — grep real OSS source across public repos (Grep, Sourcegraph, or GitHub Code Search)
• ketch docs — curated, version-aware library documentation (Context7)

Plus ketch scrape and ketch crawl to turn any URL or site into clean markdown.

It's built for two audiences at once:

• Humans, who want a fast terminal tool for the same job curl | pandoc or a browser tab would otherwise do.
• AI agents, who want structured, predictable output (--json everywhere), documented exit codes for control flow, and a single ketch config call to discover what backends are active — no environment probing, no per-provider glue code.

An operator configures the backend once (ketch config set backend searxng); every agent invocation afterward just calls ketch search or ketch scrape without knowing or caring which provider is behind it.

Install

# Homebrew
brew install 1broseidon/tap/ketch

# go install
go install github.com/1broseidon/ketch@latest

# Or download a prebuilt binary (linux/darwin/windows, amd64/arm64)
# from https://github.com/1broseidon/ketch/releases

Quickstart

$ ketch scrape https://go.dev/doc/effective_go
---
url: https://go.dev/doc/effective_go
title: Effective Go - The Go Programming Language
words: 16582
---
1. [Documentation](https://go.dev/doc/)
2. [Effective Go](https://go.dev/doc/effective_go)
...
## Introduction

Go is an open-source programming language that focuses on simplicity, reliability, and efficiency...

Search real OSS code with zero configuration:

$ ketch code "http.NewRequestWithContext" --lang go --limit 2
---
query: http.NewRequestWithContext
lang: go
backend: grepapp
result_count: 2
---
harness/harness  registry/app/remote/clients/registry/client.go  (line 207)
  req, err := http.NewRequestWithContext(ctx, http.MethodGet, buildPingURL(c.url), nil)
  https://github.com/harness/harness/blob/main/registry/app/remote/clients/registry/client.go
...

Web search needs a backend configured first — the default (brave) requires a free API key:

ketch config set brave_api_key <key>
ketch search "golang error handling"
ketch search "golang error handling" --scrape   # fetch + extract full content per result

Every command takes --json for structured output:

ketch scrape https://example.com --json
# {"url":"https://example.com","title":"Example Domain","markdown":"..."}

Commands

Command	What it does
search	Web search — Brave, DuckDuckGo, SearXNG, or Exa
code	Grep real OSS source — Grep (default), Sourcegraph, or GitHub Code Search
docs	Library/framework docs — Context7 (curated, version-aware snippets)
scrape	Fetch URL(s) and extract clean markdown; concurrent batch, JSON array, file, or stdin input
crawl	BFS or sitemap crawl with optional background execution and status tracking
browser	Manage headless Chrome for JS-rendered pages (install, status)
config	Show effective config as JSON, or init / set / path
cache	Show page-cache stats, or clear
doctor	Live health check of every backend, the browser, and the cache — exit 0 healthy, 5 when a configured surface is broken
mcp	Run ketch as an MCP server over stdio (mcp serve) — the five research surfaces as tools
version	Print version, commit, build date

Every command supports -h/--help for its full flag list; --json is the only flag global to every command. Full flag reference lives at 1broseidon.github.io/ketch.

Backends