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