DuckDuckGo Search

Privacy-focused web search using DuckDuckGo

Overview

DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine. This tool provides web search, news, and image search capabilities without requiring an API key.

The user asks a question; the agent searches DuckDuckGo and returns relevant results.

Installation

pip install "praisonai[tools]"

No API key required!

Quick Start

1. Simple Usage

   from praisonai_tools import DuckDuckGoTool
   
   # Initialize
   ddg = DuckDuckGoTool()
   
   # Search
   results = ddg.search("Python programming")
   print(results)
   
2. With Configuration

   Use the same tool with an agent — see Usage with Agent below, or pass env vars and options from the sections above.

Usage with Agent

from praisonaiagents import Agent
from praisonai_tools import DuckDuckGoTool

agent = Agent(
    name="Researcher",
    instructions="You are a research assistant. Use DuckDuckGo to search for information.",
    tools=[DuckDuckGoTool()]
)

response = agent.chat("Search for the latest Python tutorials")
print(response)

Available Methods

search(query, max_results=5)

Search the web.

from praisonai_tools import DuckDuckGoTool

ddg = DuckDuckGoTool()
results = ddg.search("machine learning basics", max_results=3)

# Returns:
# [
#     {"title": "...", "url": "...", "snippet": "..."},
#     ...
# ]

news(query, max_results=5)

Get news articles.

news = ddg.news("AI technology", max_results=5)

# Returns:
# [
#     {"title": "...", "url": "...", "source": "...", "date": "...", "snippet": "..."},
#     ...
# ]

images(query, max_results=5)

Search for images.

images = ddg.images("cute cats", max_results=3)

# Returns:
# [
#     {"title": "...", "image_url": "...", "thumbnail": "...", "source": "..."},
#     ...
# ]

Configuration Options

ddg = DuckDuckGoTool(
    proxy="socks5://localhost:9050",  # Optional: use proxy
    timeout=10                         # Request timeout in seconds
)

Function-Based Usage

from praisonai_tools import duckduckgo_search

# Quick search without instantiating class
results = duckduckgo_search("latest tech news", max_results=5)

CLI Usage

# Use with praisonai (no API key needed)
praisonai --tools DuckDuckGoTool "Search for Python best practices"

Error Handling

from praisonai_tools import DuckDuckGoTool

ddg = DuckDuckGoTool()
results = ddg.search("my query")

if results and "error" in results[0]:
    print(f"Error: {results[0]['error']}")
else:
    for r in results:
        print(f"- {r['title']}: {r['url']}")

Common Errors

Error	Cause	Solution
duckduckgo-search not installed	Missing dependency	Run pip install duckduckgo-search
RatelimitException	Too many requests	Add delay between requests or use proxy
TimeoutException	Request timeout	Increase timeout or check network

Advantages

• No API key required - Works out of the box
• Privacy-focused - No tracking
• Multiple search types - Web, news, images
• Free - No usage limits (respect rate limits)

How It Works

---

Best Practices

No API key needed

DuckDuckGo works without credentials — ideal for quick prototypes and privacy-sensitive use.

Cap result count

Request a small number of results so the agent processes fewer tokens and answers faster.

Fall back on failure

Wrap the search in error handling so the agent can switch to another search tool if a request fails.

---

Related Tools

Tavily

AI-powered search

Exa

Neural search engine

Serper

Google search API