ddgr Web Search

Search DuckDuckGo from the terminal using ddgr.

When to Use

• User asks to search the web or look something up
• Need current/real-time information not in training data
• User wants to find documentation, tutorials, or resources
• DuckDuckGo Bang searches (Wikipedia, StackOverflow, GitHub, etc.)

Prerequisites

ddgr must be installed: brew install ddgr or pip install ddgr

Basic Usage

ddgr --noua --np --json "search query"

Required flags:

• --noua: Disable user agent (always use this)
• --np (noprompt): Exit after showing results, no interactive prompt
• --json: Output in JSON format for parsing (implies --np)

Options

Flag	Description
-n N	Number of results (0-25, default 10)
-t SPAN	Time filter: d (day), w (week), m (month), y (year)
-w SITE	Search within a specific site
-r REG	Region-specific search (e.g., us-en, uk-en, in-en)
-x	Show full URLs instead of domain only
-j	"I'm Feeling Ducky" - open first result in browser
-i	Retrieve instant answer only
--unsafe	Disable safe search
--rev	List results in reversed order
-p URI	HTTPS proxy (also reads https_proxy env var)

DuckDuckGo Bangs

Bangs redirect searches to other sites. Escape ! in bash/zsh:

ddgr --noua --np \!w "search term"      # Wikipedia
ddgr --noua --np \!so "python error"    # StackOverflow  
ddgr --noua --np \!gh "repo name"       # GitHub
ddgr --noua --np \!yt "video topic"     # YouTube
ddgr --noua --np \!a "product"          # Amazon

Full bang list: https://duckduckgo.com/bang

Search Keywords

ddgr --noua --np --json "filetype:pdf annual report"
ddgr --noua --np --json "site:reddit.com python tips"

Examples

Basic search:

ddgr --noua --np --json "python asyncio tutorial"

Recent results (last week):

ddgr --noua --np --json -t w "latest news topic"

Site-specific search:

ddgr --noua --np --json -w stackoverflow.com "parse JSON"

Region-specific (India, English):

ddgr --noua --np --json -r in-en "IPL cricket"

Instant answer:

ddgr --noua --np -i "weather new york"

Limit to 5 results:

ddgr --noua --np --json -n 5 "quick query"

JSON Output Structure

Each result contains:

• title: Page title
• url: Full URL
• abstract: Description/snippet

Parse with jq:

ddgr --noua --np --json "query" | jq '.[].title'
ddgr --noua --np --json "query" | jq -r '.[0].url'  # First result URL