Web Search Tool

DuckDuckGo Instant Answer API client - free web search without API keys.

API Details

• Endpoint: https://api.duckduckgo.com/

• Parameters:

  • q - Search query (URL-encoded)
  • format=json - JSON response
  • no_html=1 - Plain text (no HTML)
  • skip_disambig=0 - Include disambiguation results

• Documentation: https://duckduckgo.com/api

• Rate Limits: None documented (be respectful)

Response Structure

{
  "Abstract": "Full text summary",
  "AbstractSource": "Wikipedia",
  "AbstractURL": "https://...",
  "Answer": "Direct answer (e.g., 4 for 2+2)",
  "AnswerType": "calc",
  "Definition": "Term definition",
  "Heading": "Result title",
  "RelatedTopics": [
    {
      "Text": "Topic description",
      "FirstURL": "https://..."
    }
  ]
}

Query Types That Work Well

1. Calculations: 2+2, sqrt(144), 10% of 500
2. Definitions: define recursion, what is AI
3. Conversions: 100 miles to km, 50c to fahrenheit
4. Facts: population of Tokyo, who won 2024 Olympics
5. Wikipedia: quantum physics, French Revolution

Query Types That Don't Work Well

1. Full web searches: Use DuckDuckGo URL provided in output
2. Recent news: DuckDuckGo focuses on evergreen content
3. Personal queries: Location-specific, user-specific data
4. Real-time data: Stock prices, live scores, etc.

Character Encoding

Some abstracts have Unicode issues in basic parsing (non-ASCII characters garbled). Install jq for cleaner output:

sudo apt-get install jq  # Ubuntu/Debian
brew install jq          # macOS

Error Handling

• Network timeout → Tool retries once, then reports error
• Empty response → Reports "No results found" with DuckDuckGo URL
• Invalid JSON → Falls back to basic grep parsing
• No curl/wget → Error message recommending installation