SearXNG Search MCP server

This MCP server allows you to connect AI agent systems to SearXNG search functionality, enabling your agents to search the web through a standardized API.

Installation

You can set up the MCP-SearXNG server using either the uvx package manager or by cloning the GitHub repository directly.

Using UVX

To install using UVX, you'll need to configure your client JSON to include the MCP server settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "searxng": {
      "command": "uvx", 
      "args": [
        "mcp-searxng"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Using Git Clone

To install via Git:

1. Clone the repository to your local machine
2. Configure your client JSON with the absolute paths to the repository:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "searxng": {
      "command": "uv", 
      "args": [
        "--project",
        "/absolute/path/to/MCP-searxng/",
        "run",
        "/absolute/path/to/MCP-searxng/mcp-searxng/main.py"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Important: Make sure to update the paths in the JSON to match your specific environment.

Configuration

Setting a Custom SearXNG URL

By default, the server connects to a SearXNG instance running at http://localhost:8080. To use a different SearXNG server:

• Set the environment variable SEARXNG_URL to your preferred SearXNG server URL

Available Tools

The server provides the following search capability:

• Search the web with SearXNG: Allows agents to perform web searches using the SearXNG search engine

Usage

Once configured, your MCP client can use the search functionality with the following method:

search(query: str) -> f"Searching for {query} using searXNG"

Example Workflow

1. Start your SearXNG server (if using a local instance)
2. Launch your MCP client with the configured server settings
3. Your agent can now search the web through SearXNG

Note for Claude Desktop users: Make sure to terminate any previous running instances of the server (using task manager or equivalent) before restarting the server to avoid conflicts.

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "searxng" '{"command":"uvx","args":["mcp-searxng"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "searxng": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-searxng"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "searxng": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-searxng"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect