---
name: ddgs-search-3492014df6e7
description: Free multi-engine web search via ddgs CLI (DuckDuckGo, Google, Bing, Brave, Yandex, Yahoo, Wikipedia) + arXiv API search. No API keys required. Use when user needs web search, research paper discovery, or when other skills need a search backend. Drop-in replacement for web-search-plus.
metadata: {"openclaw":{"requires":{"bins":["python3"]}}}
---

# ddgs-search

## Why This Skill?

🆓 **Completely free** — no API keys, no subscriptions, no rate limits, no billing surprises.

🔍 **8 search engines in one** — Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Brave, Yandex, Yahoo, Wikipedia, and Mojeek. Switch engines with a single flag. Most search skills only support one.

🎓 **Built-in arXiv research search** — search academic papers directly via arXiv's free API. Returns authors, categories, abstracts, and publication dates. Perfect for researchers, students, and AI/ML practitioners.

🔌 **Drop-in replacement** — outputs web-search-plus compatible JSON, so it works with any skill or tool that expects that format. Zero config migration.

⚡ **Lightweight** — single pip package, no browser automation, no headless Chrome. Searches complete in 1-3 seconds.

## Install

```bash
python3 scripts/install.py
```

Works on **macOS, Linux, and Windows**. Installs the `ddgs` package, verifies CLI access, and runs a quick search test.

### Manual install
```bash
pip install ddgs
```

## Web Search

### CLI wrapper (recommended)

The `ddgs-search` wrapper outputs clean JSON to stdout with no interactive prompts or abort issues:

```bash
# Google (default)
ddgs-search "your query" 5 google

# Other engines
ddgs-search "your query" 3 duckduckgo
ddgs-search "your query" 5 brave
ddgs-search "your query" 10 yandex
```

### Python script (web-search-plus compatible JSON)

```bash
# Google (default)
python3 scripts/search.py -q "your query" -m 5

# Other engines
python3 scripts/search.py -q "your query" -b duckduckgo
python3 scripts/search.py -q "your query" -b brave
python3 scripts/search.py -q "your query" -b yandex
python3 scripts/search.py -q "your query" -b yahoo
python3 scripts/search.py -q "your query" -b wikipedia
```

Output (web-search-plus compatible JSON):
```json
{
  "provider": "ddgs",
  "results": [
    {"title": "...", "url": "...", "snippet": "...", "published_date": "..."}
  ]
}
```

## arXiv Search

```bash
# Search by topic
python3 scripts/arxiv_search.py -q "3D gaussian splatting" -m 10

# Field-specific search (title, abstract, category)
python3 scripts/arxiv_search.py -q "ti:transformer AND cat:cs.CV" -m 5

# Sort by relevance instead of date
python3 scripts/arxiv_search.py -q "reinforcement learning" --sort-by relevance
```

Returns authors, categories, abstracts — same JSON format.

## Direct CLI

> ⚠️ The raw `ddgs text` CLI has a pagination bug (`input()` call → `Aborted!` + exit code 1 in non-TTY contexts). Use `ddgs-search` wrapper or `-o file.json` instead.

```bash
ddgs text -q "query" -m 5 -b google -o /tmp/results.json
```

## Integration

Set `WEB_SEARCH_PLUS_PATH` to use as a search backend for other skills:
```bash
export WEB_SEARCH_PLUS_PATH="path/to/ddgs-search/scripts/search.py"
```


---
Source attribution: InternLM
Original project: https://github.com/InternLM/WildClawBench
License: MIT
License information: https://opensource.org/license/mit
Original upstream instructions; downloaded from Mega AI Hub.

## Upstream license notice

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026 Gabriel Moreira

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.



# Mega AI Hub resource metadata

Creator / publisher: InternLM
Original project: https://github.com/InternLM/WildClawBench
Attribution basis: Upstream repository explicitly recorded in package mirror path

Fields of work: Data & Analytics, Education & Research, Marketing
Roles: Content Marketer, Data Analyst, Researcher
Specialties: API
Tools: Ddgs
Country applicability: Country not specified
Classification basis: Source catalog labels
Instruction SHA-256: e2ff6cfbcf661dd30c1ffa678488b459d85052f9af6742f24854c0e5596b5005