What is ferris-search-setup?

A set of instructions for installing and configuring ferris-search, a service that lets coding agents search the web through several search engines. It covers building the service, registering it with coding tools, and setting environment variables.

Use it to build ferris-search, add it to Claude Code or another supported client, choose a default engine, allow specific engines, and configure search-provider credentials.

It gives developers a consistent setup for choosing search engines, limiting which engines are allowed, and supplying optional provider keys or proxy settings.

ferris-search-setup — Skill for Claude Code by lispking/ferris-search

Install

Getting it into your agent

It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/lispking/ferris-search

agentmods

npx agentmods add skills/lispking/ferris-search/ferris-search-setup

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install ferris-search, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 2 skills.

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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/lispking/ferris-search/ferris-search-setup/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/lispking/ferris-search/ferris-search-setup)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/lispking/ferris-search/ferris-search-setup"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/lispking/ferris-search/ferris-search-setup/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.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/lispking/ferris-search/ferris-search-setup"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/lispking/ferris-search/ferris-search-setup.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 120 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 1,068 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan A 0 findings. 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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00120	$0.01068
Opus 5.5	$0.00048	$0.00427
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00024	$0.00214
Haiku 4.5	$0.00012	$0.00107

Measured 2mo ago against content hash d4e37c92a30a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

ferris-search-setup scanned grade A with 0 findings 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 2mo 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.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/ferris-search-setup/SKILL.md · 106 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 106 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

ferris-search Setup & Configuration Skill

Version: ferris-search 0.1.0 | Last Updated: 2026-03-30

You are an expert at installing and configuring the ferris-search MCP server. Help users by:

Setup: Guide through build, install, and MCP registration
Configuration: Explain env vars and their effects

Documentation

Refer to the local files for detailed documentation:

./references/configuration.md - All environment variables and their effects

IMPORTANT: Documentation Completeness Check

Before answering questions, Claude MUST:

Read ./references/configuration.md
If file read fails: still answer based on SKILL.md patterns

Key Patterns

Build & register with Claude Code

cargo build --release
claude mcp add ferris-search ./target/release/ferris-search

With environment variables

claude mcp add ferris-search ./target/release/ferris-search \
  -e DEFAULT_SEARCH_ENGINE=bing \
  -e ALLOWED_SEARCH_ENGINES=bing,duckduckgo,brave

Claude Desktop / Cursor (mcp-config.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ferris-search": {
      "command": "/path/to/ferris-search",
      "env": {
        "DEFAULT_SEARCH_ENGINE": "bing",
        "ALLOWED_SEARCH_ENGINES": "bing,duckduckgo,brave,baidu",
        "EXA_API_KEY": "your-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

With proxy

claude mcp add ferris-search ./target/release/ferris-search \
  -e USE_PROXY=true \
  -e PROXY_URL=http://127.0.0.1:7890

Docker

docker build -t ferris-search .
docker run -e DEFAULT_SEARCH_ENGINE=bing ferris-search

Configuration Reference

Env Var	Default	Description
`DEFAULT_SEARCH_ENGINE`	`bing`	Engine used when `engines` param is omitted
`ALLOWED_SEARCH_ENGINES`	all 14 engines	Comma-separated allow-list
`BRAVE_API_KEY`	—	Required only for `brave` engine
`EXA_API_KEY`	—	Required only for `exa` engine
`FIRECRAWL_API_KEY`	—	Required only for `firecrawl` engine
`JINA_API_KEY`	—	Required only for `jina` engine
`TAVILY_API_KEY`	—	Required only for `tavily` engine
`GITHUB_TOKEN`	—	Optional for `github`/`github_code` engines (60→5000 req/hr)
`USE_PROXY`	`false`	Enable HTTP/SOCKS5 proxy
`PROXY_URL`	`http://127.0.0.1:7890`	Proxy address
`ENABLE_HTTP_SERVER`	`false`	Enable HTTP/SSE transport alongside stdio
`MODE`	`stdio`	Transport mode: `stdio`, `http`, or `both`
`RUST_LOG`	`info`	Log level: `debug`, `info`, `warn`, `error`

Read the full file on GitHub · 106 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.

references/configuration.md 4.3 KB

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.

2mo ago First seen · 106 lines · 120 tokens per session scan A d4e37c92a30a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ferris-search-setup is a skill published in the GitHub repository lispking/ferris-search (61 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 120 tokens to every session and 1,068 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

cc-search mcp multi-engine skills web-search

ferris-search-setup next to 6 skills from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
ferris-search-setuplispking/ferris-search	Skill	61	7mo ago	Apache-2.0	A	120	Claude Code
package-releasedannote/dot-pi	Skill	57	2d ago	MIT	A	60	Claude Code, Codex
pr-reviewdannote/dot-pi	Skill	57	2d ago	MIT	A	79	Claude Code, Codex
session-reflectdannote/dot-pi	Skill	57	2d ago	MIT	A	58	Claude Code, Codex
twitter-thread-styledannote/dot-pi	Skill	57	2d ago	MIT	A	39	Claude Code, Codex
chat-to-skilldannote/dot-pi	Skill	57	2d ago	MIT	A	57	Claude Code, Codex
dont-anger-mariodannote/dot-pi	Skill	57	2d ago	MIT	A	46	Claude Code