DuckDuckGo Web Search

Web search without an API key using DuckDuckGo Lite via web_fetch. Use as a fallback when web_search fails with missing_brave_api_key error, or whenever you need to search the web and no search API is configured. Provides titles, URLs, and snippets for research queries. Zero dependencies — works with just the built-in web_fetch tool.

Install
$clawhub install ddg-web-search

DuckDuckGo Search via web_fetch

Search the web using DuckDuckGo Lite's HTML interface, parsed via web_fetch. No API key or package install required.

web_fetch(url="https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite/?q=QUERY", extractMode="text", maxChars=8000)
  • URL-encode the query — use + for spaces
  • Use extractMode="text" (not markdown) for clean results
  • Increase maxChars for more results

Region Filtering

Append &kl=REGION for regional results:

  • au-en — Australia
  • us-en — United States
  • uk-en — United Kingdom
  • de-de — Germany
  • fr-fr — France

Full list: https://duckduckgo.com/params

web_fetch(url="https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite/?q=best+coffee+melbourne&kl=au-en", extractMode="text", maxChars=8000)

Reading Results

Results appear as numbered items with title, snippet, and URL. Skip entries marked "Sponsored link" (ads) — organic results follow.

Search-then-Fetch Pattern

  1. Search — query DDG Lite for a list of results
  2. Pick — identify the most relevant URLs
  3. Fetch — use web_fetch on those URLs to read full content

Tips

  • First 1-2 results may be ads — skip to organic results
  • For exact phrases, wrap in quotes: q=%22exact+phrase%22
  • Add specific terms to narrow results (site name, year, location)

Limitations

  • No time/date filtering (DDG Lite doesn't support &df= reliably via fetch)
  • Text results only — no images or videos
  • Results sourced from Bing (may differ from Google)
  • Google search does NOT work via web_fetch (captcha blocked)