SearXNG

Connect your SearXNG instance to an LLM and get search, multi-query research, and readable page extraction as MCP tools. The server keeps model-visible output short and preserves full result payloads in hidden metadata, so you spend tokens on answers instead of raw HTML.

Install

As a Claude Code plugin:

/plugin marketplace add 88plug/claude-code-plugins
/plugin install searxng@88plug

Standalone, from any MCP client (no install step):

uvx --from git+https://github.com/88plug/searxng-mcp searxng-mcp

[!NOTE] You need a reachable SearXNG instance. The server defaults to http://127.0.0.1:8890. Point it elsewhere with SEARXNG_MCP_BASE_URL.

Quickstart

Run the server against a local SearXNG backend and confirm it is healthy:

export SEARXNG_MCP_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8890
uvx --from git+https://github.com/88plug/searxng-mcp searxng-mcp

In your MCP client, call the health tool. A healthy backend returns status ok: true with backend, cache, and render details. Then call search with a query and you get a compact ranked result list, with the full payload kept in _meta.

Rendered fetch is included in the default install. If the host has Chromium or Chrome, the server uses it; otherwise the first rendered fetch bootstraps Playwright Chromium into the user cache automatically.

What you get

• Compact model-visible output, with full details preserved in hidden _meta.
• Faster research through parallel search and fetch fan-out.
• Rendered extraction for JS-heavy pages, with no extra install flags.
• Self-hostable deployment for your own SearXNG-backed MCP server.

The server is thin by design. SearXNG does the search work; searxng-mcp handles tool shaping, caching, extraction, and transport.

MCP tools

Tool	What it does
search	Concise web search; full raw payload in _meta.
search_many	Parallel fan-out across queries, with dedupe and merged ranking.
search_and_fetch	Search plus source extraction in one call.
research	Multi-query search with batch fetches and merged, cited sources.
fetch_url	Readable page extraction with citations.
fetch_many	Parallel URL extraction with caching.
health	Backend, cache, and render status.

Tools surface as mcp__searxng__search, mcp__searxng__fetch_url, and so on.

The server also exposes MCP resources and optional prompts:

• searxng://config — current settings, transport mode, and render support.
• searxng://guide — the available tools and when to use each.
• quick_lookup, deep_research, research_workflow — optional compatibility prompts for clients that support prompt surfaces.

Transports and deployment

The server supports stdio, streamable-http, and sse transports.

Local stdio for desktop clients and private workflows:

SEARXNG_MCP_TRANSPORT=stdio uvx --from git+https://github.com/88plug/searxng-mcp searxng-mcp

Streamable HTTP for a private service or team deployment:

uvx --from git+https://github.com/88plug/searxng-mcp searxng-mcp \
  --transport streamable-http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8811

From a checkout (contributor path):

uv sync
uv run searxng-mcp

Docker

docker build -t searxng-mcp .
docker run --rm -p 8811:8811 --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway \
  -e SEARXNG_MCP_BASE_URL=http://host.docker.internal:8890 \
  searxng-mcp

For a longer-running self-hosted service, use the hardened image and Compose stack:

docker build -f Dockerfile.prod -t searxng-mcp:prod .
cp docker-compose.env.example .env
docker compose up --build -d

[!TIP] If you expose the HTTP transport, treat it like an internal service. fetch_url and fetch_many can request arbitrary client-supplied URLs, so put streamable-http behind auth or a reverse proxy and add the controls you would expect for any SSRF-capable tool. SEARXNG_MCP_FETCH_VERIFY_TLS=0 is only for private or self-signed backends.

Configuration

Set behavior through environment variables. The most common ones: