OpenClaw supports DuckDuckGo as a key-free web_search provider. No API key or account is required.

Warning

DuckDuckGo is an experimental, unofficial integration that pulls results from DuckDuckGo's non-JavaScript search pages - not an official API. Expect occasional breakage from bot-challenge pages or HTML changes.

Setup

No API key needed - just set DuckDuckGo as your provider:

Configure

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

Config

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

Optional plugin-level settings for region and SafeSearch:

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

Tool parameters

param

Search query.

param

Results to return (1-10).

param

DuckDuckGo region code (e.g. us-en, uk-en, de-de).

param

SafeSearch level.

Region and SafeSearch can also be set in plugin config (see above) - tool parameters override config values per-query.

Notes

• No API key - works after you select DuckDuckGo as your web_search provider
• Experimental - gathers results from DuckDuckGo's non-JavaScript HTML search pages, not an official API or SDK
• Bot-challenge risk - DuckDuckGo may serve CAPTCHAs or block requests under heavy or automated use
• HTML parsing - results depend on page structure, which can change without notice
• Explicit selection - OpenClaw does not choose DuckDuckGo automatically when no API-backed provider is configured
• SafeSearch defaults to moderate when not configured

Tip

For production use, consider Brave Search (free tier available) or another API-backed provider.

Related

• Web Search overview -- all providers and auto-detection
• Brave Search -- structured results with free tier
• Exa Search -- neural search with content extraction