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DuckDuckGo Search Setup and Configuration

Learn how to set up DuckDuckGo as a key-free web search provider in OpenClaw, including configuration and tool parameters. This guide is for users who need a search option without API credentials.

Read this when

  • You want a web search provider that requires no API key
  • You want to use DuckDuckGo for web_search
  • You want an explicitly selected key-free search provider

OpenClaw treats DuckDuckGo as a key-free web_search provider. Setting it up requires neither an API key nor an account.

Warning

This integration is experimental and unofficial. Rather than calling an official API, it scrapes DuckDuckGo's non-JavaScript HTML search pages. Because of this, bot-challenge pages or HTML layout changes may cause intermittent failures.

Setup

DuckDuckGo is never picked automatically, since auto-detection looks only at providers that have working credentials. You must choose it manually:

Install the plugin

openclaw plugins install @openclaw/duckduckgo-plugin
openclaw gateway restart

Configure

openclaw configure --section web
# Select "duckduckgo" as the provider

Config

Specify the provider directly in your configuration:

{
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        provider: "duckduckgo",
      },
    },
  },
}

Optional plugin-level controls for region and SafeSearch:

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      duckduckgo: {
        config: {
          webSearch: {
            region: "us-en", // DuckDuckGo region code
            safeSearch: "moderate", // "strict", "moderate", or "off"
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Tool parameters

  • query (string, required), The search query.

  • count (number, default: 5), Number of results to fetch, between 1 and 10.

  • region (string), DuckDuckGo region code, for example us-en, uk-en, or de-de.

  • safeSearch (strict' | 'moderate' | 'off, default: moderate), SafeSearch filtering level.

On a per-query basis, the region and safeSearch tool parameters take precedence over the plugin config values listed above.

Notes

  • No API key needed, as soon as DuckDuckGo is chosen as the web_search provider, it functions immediately.
  • Experimental, it scrapes DuckDuckGo's non-JavaScript HTML search pages rather than relying on an official API or SDK. Since results depend on page structure, changes to that structure can break things without warning.
  • Bot-challenge risk, under heavy or automated usage, DuckDuckGo might present CAPTCHAs or block requests.
  • Manual selection required, because OpenClaw's auto-detect only evaluates providers with usable credentials, a key-free option like DuckDuckGo is never selected on its own; provider: "duckduckgo" must be set explicitly.
  • SafeSearch is set to moderate by default unless you configure otherwise.

Tip

For production workloads, Brave Search (which has a free tier) or another API-backed provider may be a better fit.

396 words · updated Aug 6, 2026