searcharvester-search

name	searcharvester-search
description	Search the web via SearXNG (100+ engines: Google, DuckDuckGo, Brave, Bing, Yandex, Mojeek, ...) through a Tavily-compatible API. Use when the user needs to find information, recent news, compare sources, gather facts, or locate specific URLs. Returns title + URL + short snippet for each result. For full page content, follow up with the `searcharvester-extract` skill.
version	1.0.0
metadata	{"hermes":{"tags":["search","web","research","citations"],"category":"research"}}

Searcharvester Search

When to Use

• The user asks to find information, news, articles, or sources on a topic.
• You need citations with URLs before writing a research answer.
• The user requests comparison across multiple sources.
• You want to locate the authoritative URL for a specific fact before extracting it.

Do not use this skill for:

• Reading the full content of a known URL (use searcharvester-extract instead).
• Answering questions from your own knowledge without citations (just reply directly).

Procedure

The search endpoint lives at $SEARCHARVESTER_URL (default http://tavily-adapter:8000). It is reachable via the helper script in this skill.

Basic search

python3 SKILL_DIR/scripts/search.py --query "what is retrieval augmented generation" --max-results 5

Pick a specific engine or category

# Only DuckDuckGo + Brave
python3 SKILL_DIR/scripts/search.py --query "GPT-5 release" --engines duckduckgo,brave --max-results 5

# News category for fresh info
python3 SKILL_DIR/scripts/search.py --query "OpenAI news today" --categories news --max-results 10

Output

JSON printed to stdout:

{
  "query": "...",
  "results": [
    {
      "url": "https://...",
      "title": "...",
      "content": "short snippet from the search engine"
    }
  ]
}

Parse it with jq, or read it straight if short. Save links to your plan so you can extract them next.

Parameters reference

Flag	Values	Default	Notes
--query	string	required	Free-text query
--max-results	int	10	How many hits to return
--engines	comma-separated	google,duckduckgo,brave	Any SearXNG engine
--categories	general/news/images/videos/map/music/it/science/files/social	general

Pitfalls

• Empty results: Google is rate-limiting — rerun with --engines duckduckgo,brave.
• 504 timeout: SearXNG is probably waiting on a slow engine. Narrow --engines.
• Too few good hits: broaden the query (remove dates, use synonyms) or raise --max-results.

Verification

A working call returns HTTP 200 with at least one URL in results[]. If results is [], try different engines.