web-search-api

web-search-api is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from besoeasy/open-skills. It costs 26 tokens per session (3,255 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A web-search skill that lets an agent query SearXNG, a privacy-focused search service that combines results from many search engines.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for repeated or high-volume web searches, privacy-sensitive research, and searches across several engines.
Why use it?
It helps avoid paid search APIs, query quotas, and user tracking when an agent needs to search the web.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: positional $N argument.

Good fit Use it for repeated or high-volume web searches, privacy-sensitive research, and searches across several engines.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/besoeasy/open-skills/web-search-api
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 besoeasy/open-skills --skill web-search-api
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/besoeasy/open-skills

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 web-search-api

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/besoeasy/open-skills/web-search-api/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/besoeasy/open-skills/web-search-api)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/besoeasy/open-skills/web-search-api"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/besoeasy/open-skills/web-search-api/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 web-search-api

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/besoeasy/open-skills/web-search-api"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/besoeasy/open-skills/web-search-api.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 26 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,255 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. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 2 findings, up to medium

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • medium Excessive Agency · line 14
    Skill allows unbounded resource consumption (API calls, storage, compute). Without rate limits or quotas, a compromised or misbehaving agent can cause denial-of-service or cost overruns.
    Fix: Set explicit rate limits, timeouts, and resource quotas for API calls, file operations, and compute. Implement circuit breakers for runaway loops.
  • medium Prompt Injection · line 303
    Subtle instructions detected that may alter agent decision-making or introduce hidden biases.
    Fix: Review content for implicit steering or bias. Ensure instructions are explicit and align with the skill's stated purpose.
How audits are shown
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 $0.00026 $0.03255
Opus 5 $0.00013 $0.01628
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00651
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00326

Measured 10d ago against content hash 2ed1ca1d98e0, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

web-search-api 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.

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.

curl -s "https://searx.space/data/instances.json" | jq -r '.instances | to_entries[] | select(.value.http.grade == "A" or .value.http.grade == "A+") | select(.value.network.asn_privacy == 1) | .key' | head -10
skills/web-search-api/SKILL.md · 419 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 419 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Web Search API (Free) — SearXNG

Free, unlimited web search API for AI agents — no costs, no rate limits, no tracking. Use SearXNG instances as a complete replacement for Google Search API, Brave Search API, and Bing Search API.

Why This Replaces Paid Search APIs

💰 Cost savings:

  • 100% free — no API keys, no rate limits, no billing
  • Unlimited queries — save $100s vs. Google Search API ($5/1000 queries)
  • No tracking — completely anonymous, privacy-first
  • Multi-engine — aggregates results from Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and 70+ sources

Perfect for AI agents that need:

  • Web search without Google API costs
  • Privacy-respecting search (no user tracking)
  • High volume queries without quotas
  • Distributed infrastructure (use multiple instances)

Quick comparison

Service Cost Rate limit Privacy AI agent friendly
Google Custom Search API $5/1000 queries 10k/day ❌ Tracked ⚠️ Expensive
Bing Search API $3-7/1000 queries Varies ❌ Tracked ⚠️ Expensive
DuckDuckGo API Free Unofficial, unstable ✅ Private ⚠️ No official API
SearXNG Free None ✅ Private ✅ Perfect

Skills

1. Fetch active SearXNG instances

# Get list of active instances from searx.space
curl -s "https://searx.space/data/instances.json" | jq -r '.instances | to_entries[] | select(.value.http.grade == "A" or .value.http.grade == "A+") | select(.value.network.asn_privacy == 1) | .key' | head -10

Node.js:

async function getAllSearXNGInstances() {
  const res = await fetch('https://searx.space/data/instances.json');
  const data = await res.json();

  return Object.entries(data.instances)
    .map(([url]) => url)
    .filter((url) => url.startsWith('https://'));
}

// Usage
// getAllSearXNGInstances().then(console.log);

2. Search with SearXNG API

Basic search query:

# Search using a SearXNG instance
INSTANCE="https://searx.party"
QUERY="open source AI agents"

curl -s "${INSTANCE}/search?q=${QUERY}&format=json" | jq '.results[] | {title, url, content}'

Read the full file on GitHub · 419 lines

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 · 419 lines · 26 tokens per session scan A 2ed1ca1d98e0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

web-search-api is a skill published in the GitHub repository besoeasy/open-skills (132 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 26 tokens to every session and 3,255 once invoked, about $0.0001 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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