Searxng MCP server

SearXNG MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides web search capabilities by integrating with a SearXNG instance.

Features

• Web Search: Perform powerful aggregated searches across multiple engines.
• Discovery: Programmatically retrieve available categories and engines.
• Stateless HTTP: Compatible with any standard JSON-RPC client.
• Flexible Configuration: Supports environment variables and command-line arguments.

Example of compose.yml to run SearXNG with MCP server

services:
  searxng:
    image: searxng/searxng:latest
    ports:
      - "${SEARXNG_PORT:-8080}:8080"
    volumes:
      - "${SEARXNG_VOL_CONFIG:-searxng-config}:/etc/searxng/"
      - "${SEARXNG_VOL_DATA:-searxng-data}:/var/cache/searxng/"
    restart: always

  searxng-mcp:
    image: ghcr.io/aicrafted/searxng-mcp:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      # Ensure SearXNG starts before the MCP server
      - searxng
    environment:
      SEARXNG_URL: "${SEARXNG_URL:-http://searxng:8080}"
      MCP_HOST: "${MCP_HOST:-127.0.0.1}"
      MCP_PORT: "${MCP_PORT:-32123}"
      MCP_TRANSPORT: "${MCP_TRANSPORT:-http}"
      MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS: "${MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS:-localhost:*,127.0.0.1:*}"
      MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS: "${MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS:-http://localhost:*,http://127.0.0.1:*}"
      MCP_DISABLE_DNS_REBINDING_PROTECTION: "${MCP_DISABLE_DNS_REBINDING_PROTECTION:-false}"
    ports:
      - "${MCP_PORT:-32123}:${MCP_PORT:-32123}"

volumes:
  searxng-config:
  searxng-data:

Important: Enable JSON responses in your SearXNG settings.yml, otherwise the MCP server cannot read search results:

yaml

search:

formats:

- html

- json

Example .env

# SearXNG url should be visible by the MCP server inside docker, so use internal service port here
SEARXNG_URL=http://searxng:8080
# Public SearXNG port
SEARXNG_PORT=8080
# Searxng config and data volumes, start with "./" if You want to bind dir instead using volume
SEARXNG_VOL_CONFIG=searxng-config
SEARXNG_VOL_DATA=searxng-data

# MCP server host, port and transport ("stdio", "sse", "http")
MCP_HOST=127.0.0.1
MCP_PORT=32123
MCP_TRANSPORT=http

# MCP DNS rebinding protection (see https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk/issues/1798 for details)
MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS=localhost:*,127.0.0.1:*
MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=http://localhost:*,http://127.0.0.1:*
# MCP_DISABLE_DNS_REBINDING_PROTECTION=true

MCP client config

HTTP transport (recommended)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "searxng": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://localhost:32123/mcp"
    }
  }
}

SSE transport

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "searxng": {
      "type": "sse",
      "url": "http://localhost:32123/sse"
    }
  }
}

Note: SSE transport uses the /sse endpoint, not /mcp. HTTP transport uses /mcp.

Prerequisites for run from sources

• Python 3.10+
• A running SearXNG instance.

Installation

1. Clone the repository and navigate to the directory.
2. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

1. Set up your .env file (optional).

Configuration

The server reads configuration from command-line arguments and environment variables. Command-line arguments override the corresponding defaults used at startup.

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.