SearXNG Configuration Reference

Complete reference for config/searxng/settings.yml. Changes require a SearXNG restart.

Top-level keys

general:
  debug: false
  instance_name: "rabbit-hole-searxng"

search:
  safe_search: 0           # 0=off, 1=moderate, 2=strict
  autocomplete: ""         # disable autocomplete backend
  default_lang: en
  languages:
    - en
  max_page: 5              # allow pagination up to page 5
  formats:
    - html
    - json                 # REQUIRED — Rabbit Hole uses JSON format

outgoing:
  request_timeout: 4.0    # seconds per engine request
  max_request_timeout: 8.0
  pool_connections: 100
  pool_maxsize: 20
  enable_http2: true

server:
  secret_key: "your-secret-key"
  bind_address: "0.0.0.0:8080"
  base_url: false
  limiter: false           # disable rate limiting for local use
  public_instance: false

ui:
  static_use_hash: false
  default_locale: en
  query_in_title: false
  infinite_scroll: false

Engine configuration

Each engine entry:

engines:
  - name: <display name>
    engine: <engine module>
    shortcut: <2-3 letter code>
    categories: <category list>    # optional override
    disabled: false                # false = enabled
    weight: 1.0                    # RRF weight (default 1.0)
    timeout: 3.0                   # per-engine timeout override
    max_page: 5                    # max pagination depth

    # Error backoff (seconds). List = successive failures.
    suspended_times:
      SearxEngineResponseException: [0, 0, 0]
      SearxEngineCaptchaException: [86400]
      SearxEngineAPIException: [0, 0, 0]

Recommended enabled engines

General category

Engine	Module	Notes
google	google	Weight 1.2 — highest quality
bing	bing	Good coverage
brave	brave	Privacy-focused, good results
duckduckgo	duckduckgo	Fast
wikipedia	wikipedia	Weight 1.5
wikidata	wikidata	Weight 2.0 — structured facts

Social media category

Engine	Module	Notes
reddit	reddit	Community discussions
hackernews	hackernews	Tech community opinions

IT category

Engine	Module	Notes
github	github	Code, repos, issues
stackoverflow	stackoverflow	Code Q&A
archlinux wiki	archlinux_wiki	System/config docs

Science category

Engine	Module	Notes
arxiv	arxiv	Preprints
semantic scholar	semantic_scholar	Academic papers
pubmed	pubmed	Biomedical literature

Engines to disable

These engines add noise or have poor result quality for technical queries:

engines:
  - name: baidu
    disabled: true
  - name: yahoo
    disabled: true
  - name: yandex
    disabled: true
  - name: qwant
    disabled: true
  - name: seznam
    disabled: true
  - name: naver
    disabled: true

SearXNG JSON API

Rabbit Hole calls SearXNG at:

GET {SEARXNG_ENDPOINT}/search
  ?q=<query>
  &format=json
  &language=en
  &categories=<category>   # or &engines=<engine1,engine2>
  &pageno=<1-5>
  &time_range=<day|week|month|year>

Response:

{
  query: string;
  results: Array<{
    title: string;
    url: string;
    content: string;     // snippet
    engine: string;
    engines: string[];
    publishedDate?: string;
    score: number;       // RRF score
  }>;
  suggestions: string[];
  infoboxes: unknown[];
  number_of_results: number;
}

Environment variable

SEARXNG_ENDPOINT=http://ava:8888

Set in apps/rabbit-hole/.env.local. Used by searchWeb in app/lib/search.ts.