Duckduckgo MCP Server

What nickclyde/duckduckgo-mcp-server MCP server does

The nickclyde/duckduckgo-mcp-server MCP server exposes DuckDuckGo search and webpage content retrieval through MCP. It is intended for agents that need to discover web pages, inspect result links, and read extracted text from selected URLs.

Search accepts a query, an optional maximum result count, and an optional region code. Supported region examples include us-en, cn-zh, jp-ja, de-de, fr-fr, and wt-wt. If no region is supplied for a request, the server uses its configured default or DuckDuckGo's default behavior.

The content-fetching capability accepts a URL and returns parsed page content. Callers can set a starting character offset and maximum response length, which makes it possible to read long pages in sections.

How it works

The nickclyde/duckduckgo-mcp-server MCP server uses httpx by default for HTTP requests. Its fetch operation can instead use a curl backend based on curl_cffi, or auto, which starts with httpx and falls back when a 403 response or Cloudflare challenge is detected. The optional browser extra is required for the curl and auto backends.

Search has its own backend setting and defaults to auto. If the optional browser dependency is unavailable and the HTTP client is blocked, search may return a message directing the operator to install that extra. Built-in rate limiting applies to search and content fetching, and responses are formatted for consumption by language models.

The default MCP transport is stdio. The process can also run with SSE or Streamable HTTP. HTTP transports bind to 127.0.0.1:8000 unless a different host and port are supplied.

Setup and configuration

Install or run the package from PyPI with uv:

uvx duckduckgo-mcp-server

Claude Desktop can launch it with uvx and the package name in its MCP server configuration. Claude Code can add the same command through claude mcp add. The repository also documents SSE and Streamable HTTP launch options.

Optional environment variables include DDG_SAFE_SEARCH for STRICT, MODERATE, or OFF filtering, DDG_REGION for the default region, and DDG_SEARCH_BACKEND for the search backend. DDG_CA_CERTS points to a PEM CA bundle for TLS-intercepting proxies. HTTP deployments can use DDG_ALLOWED_HOSTS and DDG_ALLOWED_ORIGINS to configure DNS-rebinding protection.

Tools and capabilities

The nickclyde/duckduckgo-mcp-server MCP server provides capabilities for:

• Searching DuckDuckGo with a query and result limit.
• Selecting a search region per request or through a default setting.
• Fetching and parsing text from a webpage URL.
• Paginating fetched content with character offsets and length limits.
• Choosing httpx, curl, or auto for an individual content-fetch request.

Limitations and notes

No paid search credential is described in the supplied material. Results and page retrieval depend on the target site's availability and bot-detection behavior. The curl and auto options require installation with the [browser] extra. Setting --no-ssl-verify or DDG_SSL_VERIFY=0 disables certificate verification and is documented only as a last resort.

When using HTTP transports behind a reverse proxy or in a container, the proxy's host and origin may need to be added to the allow-list. Disabling DNS-rebinding protection is available, but the documentation recommends allow-listing instead.