duckduckgo-search

duckduckgo-search is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from Abruptive/Ankh.md. It costs 40 tokens per session (948 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A fallback web-search workflow using DuckDuckGo, a search engine, when the main search tool is unavailable. It can find result URLs and retrieve page content without an API key.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to search for topics, filter results by region or recent date, return JSON results, and extract content from pages found through search.
Why use it?
It gives you a way to search the web when the preferred search service cannot be used. It removes the need to set up a paid search API for this fallback.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to search for topics, filter results by region or recent date, return JSON results, and extract content from pages found through search.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/abruptive/ankh.md/duckduckgo-search
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add Abruptive/Ankh.md --skill duckduckgo-search
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Abruptive/Ankh.md

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for duckduckgo-search

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/abruptive/ankh.md/duckduckgo-search/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/abruptive/ankh.md/duckduckgo-search)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/abruptive/ankh.md/duckduckgo-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/abruptive/ankh.md/duckduckgo-search/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for duckduckgo-search

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/abruptive/ankh.md/duckduckgo-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/abruptive/ankh.md/duckduckgo-search.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 40 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 948 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00040 $0.00948
Opus 5 $0.00020 $0.00474
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00190
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00095

Measured 10d ago against content hash 4b5bfd901c89, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

duckduckgo-search scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 10d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/duckduckgo.sh), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

2. **Extract** content using the `web_extract` tool (if available) or curl
examples/web-researcher/.agent/skills/research/duckduckgo-search/SKILL.md · 112 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 112 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

DuckDuckGo Search (Firecrawl Fallback)

Free web search using DuckDuckGo. No API key required.

When to Use This

Use this skill ONLY when the web_search tool is not available (i.e., FIRECRAWL_API_KEY is not set). If web_search works, prefer it — it returns richer results with built-in content extraction.

Signs you need this fallback:

  • web_search tool is not listed in your available tools
  • web_search returns an error about missing FIRECRAWL_API_KEY

Setup

# Install the ddgs package (one-time)
pip install ddgs

Web Search (Primary Use Case)

Via Terminal (ddgs CLI)

# Basic search — returns titles, URLs, and snippets
ddgs text -k "python async programming" -m 5

# With region filter
ddgs text -k "best restaurants" -m 5 -r us-en

# Recent results only (d=day, w=week, m=month, y=year)
ddgs text -k "latest AI news" -m 5 -t w

# JSON output for parsing
ddgs text -k "fastapi tutorial" -m 5 -o json

Via Python (in execute_code)

from hermes_tools import terminal

# Search and get results
result = terminal("ddgs text -k 'python web framework comparison' -m 5")
print(result["output"])

CLI Flags

Flag Description Example
-k Keywords (query) — required -k "search terms"
-m Max results -m 5
-r Region -r us-en
-t Time limit -t w (week)
-s Safe search -s off
-o Output format -o json

Other Search Types

# Image search
ddgs images -k "landscape photography" -m 10

# News search
ddgs news -k "artificial intelligence" -m 5

# Video search
ddgs videos -k "python tutorial" -m 5

Workflow: Search → Extract

DuckDuckGo finds URLs. To get full page content, follow up with web_extract:

  1. Search with ddgs to find relevant URLs
  2. Extract content using the web_extract tool (if available) or curl
# Step 1: Find URLs
ddgs text -k "fastapi tutorial" -m 3

# Step 2: Extract full content from a result URL
# (use web_extract tool if available, otherwise curl)
curl -s "https://example.com/article" | head -200

Read the full file on GitHub · 112 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 10d ago First seen · 112 lines · 40 tokens per session scan A 4b5bfd901c89

Subscribe to this mod's changes

duckduckgo-search is a skill published in the GitHub repository Abruptive/Ankh.md (74 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 40 tokens to every session and 948 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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