SearXNG MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides web search capabilities by integrating with a SearXNG instance.

Features

• Web Search: Perform powerful aggregated searches across multiple engines.
• Discovery: Programmatically retrieve available categories and engines.
• Stateless HTTP: Compatible with any standard JSON-RPC client.
• Flexible Configuration: Supports environment variables and command-line arguments.

Example of compose.yml to run SearXNG with MCP server

services:
  searxng:
    image: searxng/searxng:latest
    expose:
      - 8080
    volumes:
      - ./searxng/etc/:/etc/searxng/
      - ./searxng/data/:/var/cache/searxng/
    restart: always

  searxng-mcp:
    image: ghcr.io/aicrafted/searxng-mcp:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      # Ensure SearXNG starts before the MCP server
      - searxng
    environment:
      SEARXNG_URL: http://searxng:8080
      MCP_HOST: 0.0.0.0
      MCP_PORT: 32123
      MCP_TRANSPORT: "http"
    ports:
      - "32123:32123"

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• A running SearXNG instance.

Installation

1. Clone the repository and navigate to the directory.
2. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

3. Set up your .env file (optional):

   SEARXNG_URL=http://your-searxng-instance:8080
   MCP_PORT=32123
   MCP_HOST=127.0.0.1
   

Usage

Run the server using uv or standard python:

python searxng_mcp.py --transport http --port 32123 --searxng http://searx.lan

Run with Docker

1. Build the image:

   docker build -t searxng-mcp .
   

2. Run the container:

   docker run -d \
     -p 32123:32123 \
     -e SEARXNG_URL=http://your-searxng-instance:8080 \
     --name searxng-mcp \
     searxng-mcp
   

Transport Options

• stdio: Standard input/output (default for some MCP clients).
• http: Stateless HTTP (streamable-http).
• sse: Server-Sent Events.

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Search Abilities Guide

SearXNG aggregates results from various sources. This guide outlines the capabilities available through the searxng_search tool.

Search Categories

Categories help refine your search by content type. Use these in the categories parameter (comma-separated).

Category	Description
general	Default web search (Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, etc.)
images	Image search results
videos	Video content from YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
news	Recent news articles
map	Geographical and map information
it	IT-related searches (StackOverflow, GitHub, etc.)
science	Scientific papers and articles (ArXiv, Google Scholar)
files	Torrent and file searches
social_media	Posts and profiles from social platforms

Supported Engines

SearXNG can query over 130 engines. Configured engines typically include:

• Web: Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Startpage
• Knowledge: Wikipedia, Wikidata
• Development: GitHub, StackOverflow, PyPI
• Social: Reddit, Twitter/X

Advanced Search Parameters

• categories: Filter by specific types (e.g., news,it).
• engines: Force specific engines (e.g., google,wikipedia).
• language: Specify search language (e.g., en, es, fr).
• pageno: Navigate through multiple pages of results.
• time_range: Filter by date (day, month, year).
• safesearch: Control content filtering (0=None, 1=Moderate, 2=Strict).

Programmatic Discovery

Use the searxng_get_info tool to dynamically retrieve the list of enabled categories and engines from your instance.