DuckDuckGo Search MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides web search capabilities through DuckDuckGo, with additional features for content fetching and parsing.

Quick Start

uvx duckduckgo-mcp-server

Features

• Web Search: Search DuckDuckGo with advanced rate limiting and result formatting
• Content Fetching: Retrieve and parse webpage content with intelligent text extraction
• Rate Limiting: Built-in protection against rate limits for both search and content fetching
• Error Handling: Comprehensive error handling and logging
• LLM-Friendly Output: Results formatted specifically for large language model consumption

Installation

Install from PyPI using uv:

uv pip install duckduckgo-mcp-server

Usage

Running with Claude Desktop

1. Download Claude Desktop
2. Create or edit your Claude Desktop configuration:
   • On macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • On Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Add the following configuration:

Basic Configuration (No SafeSearch, No Default Region):

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "ddg-search": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": ["duckduckgo-mcp-server"]
        }
    }
}

With SafeSearch and Region Configuration:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "ddg-search": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": ["duckduckgo-mcp-server"],
            "env": {
                "DDG_SAFE_SEARCH": "STRICT",
                "DDG_REGION": "cn-zh"
            }
        }
    }
}

Configuration Options:

• DDG_SAFE_SEARCH: SafeSearch filtering level (optional)
  • STRICT: Maximum content filtering (kp=1)
  • MODERATE: Balanced filtering (kp=-1, default if not specified)
  • OFF: No content filtering (kp=-2)
• DDG_REGION: Default region/language code (optional, examples below)
  • us-en: United States (English)
  • cn-zh: China (Chinese)
  • jp-ja: Japan (Japanese)
  • wt-wt: No specific region
  • Leave empty for DuckDuckGo's default behavior
• DDG_CA_CERTS: Path to a PEM CA bundle used to verify TLS certificates on outbound requests (optional). Needed behind TLS-intercepting proxies — see Running behind a TLS-intercepting proxy.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Running with Claude Code

1. Download Claude Code
2. Ensure uvenv is installed and the uvx command is available
3. Add the MCP server: claude mcp add ddg-search uvx duckduckgo-mcp-server

Running with SSE or Streamable HTTP

The server supports alternative transports for use with other MCP clients:

# SSE transport
uvx duckduckgo-mcp-server --transport sse

# Streamable HTTP transport
uvx duckduckgo-mcp-server --transport streamable-http

The default transport is stdio, which is used by Claude Desktop and Claude Code.

When running with sse or streamable-http, override the default bind address (127.0.0.1:8000) with the --host and --port flags:

uvx duckduckgo-mcp-server --transport streamable-http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 7070

Running behind a reverse proxy or in Docker

FastMCP enables DNS-rebinding protection for the HTTP transports and, by default, only accepts Host/Origin headers for localhost. Behind a reverse proxy or in a container the client's Host header won't match, so requests fail with 421 Misdirected Request.

Fix it by allow-lis

... View full README on GitHub