Setup: SearXNG

The web_search tool routes through an engine chain: Brave → SearXNG → DuckDuckGo → IAsk. A local SearXNG instance provides another search source when an engine rate-limits or fails. It also provides the science, it, files, and music categories.

Choose one SearXNG setup path:

A. Docker Compose (when TomoriBot runs in Docker)

Use this path if you run TomoriBot with the repo’s Docker Compose stack. Then run with the searxng profile:

docker compose --profile searxng up -d

Set SEARXNG_BASE_URL=http://searxng:8080/ in .env before starting this profile. The bot uses that address to reach the searxng service. Leave the variable unset when the profile is off.

If you run TomoriBot directly with bun run dev, use the standalone path below instead.

Set SEARXNG_SECRET in .env to a separate random value for the container’s signing key.

B. Standalone Docker (when running `bun run dev`)

First, set SEARXNG_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080/ in .env so the bot knows where to connect.

Then, instead of running TomoriBot directly with bun run dev, use bun run launch --searxng. This handles the container lifecycle automatically and waits for the container to be healthy before starting the bot:

bun run launch --searxng

If you prefer to manage the container yourself, keep SEARXNG_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080/ in .env. Build the repository’s image first so it loads the JSON search settings and substitutes the signing key:

docker build -t tomoribot-searxng:latest -f servers/searxng/Dockerfile servers/searxng

Then run it:

PowerShell:

docker run -d --name searxng -p 8080:8080 `
  --tmpfs /etc/searxng `
  tomoribot-searxng:latest

Bash (Linux/macOS):

docker run -d --name searxng -p 8080:8080 \
  --tmpfs /etc/searxng \
  tomoribot-searxng:latest

Then run bun run dev once the container is healthy (docker ps shows (healthy)). Without SEARXNG_SECRET in the container environment, the image generates an ephemeral signing key.

C. No SearXNG

Leave SEARXNG_BASE_URL unset. The chain falls back to Brave → DuckDuckGo → IAsk.

When no SearXNG server is configured, the assembled web_search schema no longer advertises SearXNG-only categories. The common categories (text, image, video, news) still appear when Brave is configured, and text-only search appears when only the DuckDuckGo/IAsk MCP fallback is available.

Image Result Tuning

SearXNG image results are HEAD-validated, optionally compressed, and posted as Discord attachments: identical UX to Brave images. If all candidate URLs fail validation, SearXNG returns a text listing of image links instead of a hard failure.

Variable	Default	Description
`SEARXNG_IMAGE_COUNT`	`3` (max 10)	How many valid images are sent to Discord. Overridden by the LLM’s `count` arg.
`SEARXNG_IMAGE_POOL`	`10`	Candidate URL pool when the LLM does not specify `count`. When `count` is specified, the pool is `count × 3` (capped at 30) to absorb hotlink-protection failures.
`WEB_SEARCH_TIMEOUT_MS`	—	Per-engine request timeout.

(See .env.optional.example for all tunables.)