⚙Tool
DuckDuckGo
Privacy-respecting web, news, and image search with no API key required
DuckDuckGo provides free, privacy-respecting search across web content, news, and images via the DuckDuckGo Instant Answers API. Use it in workflows when you need search results without tracking and without managing an API key.
Overview
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | duckduckgo |
| Category | Tool — Search & Research |
| Auth | None |
Operations
| Operation | Tool ID | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Web Search | duckduckgo_text_search | Query the DuckDuckGo Instant Answers API and return instant answers, abstracts, and related topics |
| News Search | duckduckgo_news_search | Search for recent news articles and return titles, URLs, sources, and excerpts |
| Image Search | duckduckgo_images_search | Search for images and return titles, URLs, thumbnails, and dimensions |
Configuration
| Setting | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
query | string | Yes | The search query to execute. Accepted by all three operations. |
noHtml | boolean | No | (Web Search only) Strip HTML tags from result text. Defaults to true. |
skipDisambig | boolean | No | (Web Search only) Skip disambiguation pages and return the best single match. Defaults to false. |
maxResults | number | No | (News Search, Image Search) Maximum number of results to return. Defaults to 10. |
region | string | No | (News Search, Image Search) BCP-47 region/locale code for localized results — e.g., us-en, wt-wt (worldwide). |
Outputs
Web Search (duckduckgo_text_search)
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
heading | string | Heading or title of the instant answer |
abstract | string | Short abstract summary of the topic |
abstractText | string | Plain-text version of the abstract (HTML stripped) |
abstractSource | string | Name of the source for the abstract (e.g., Wikipedia) |
abstractURL | string | URL to the abstract source page |
image | string | URL to an image related to the topic |
answer | string | Direct answer string when one is available |
answerType | string | Type identifier for the direct answer |
type | string | Response type: A (article), D (disambiguation), C (category) |
relatedTopics | array | Array of related topics, each with FirstURL, Text, and Result fields |
results | array | Array of external link results, each with FirstURL, Text, and Result fields |
News Search (duckduckgo_news_search)
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
results | array | Array of news items, each with title, url, source, date, and excerpt fields |
Image Search (duckduckgo_images_search)
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
results | array | Array of image results, each with title, url, thumbnail, source, width, and height fields |
Example
[Starter] → [DuckDuckGo: Web Search] → [Agent: summarize the results]A user provides a topic via {{starter.topic}}. The DuckDuckGo block runs a Web Search with query set to {{starter.topic}} and noHtml set to true. The Agent block receives {{duckduckgo.abstractText}} and {{duckduckgo.relatedTopics}} and produces a concise summary. Because no API key is needed, no credentials block is required in the workflow.
Tips
- No API key needed — all three operations call
https://api.duckduckgo.com/with no authentication headers, so you can use them in any workflow without a credentials block. - Web Search returns instant answers, not a list of URLs — the
abstractTextandanswerfields are most useful for feeding into an Agent. For a ranked list of links, prefer therelatedTopicsorresultsarrays. - News Search and Image Search use DuckDuckGo's topic-based results rather than a dedicated news or image index, so result quality varies by query specificity. Set
maxResultsto a low value (5–10) and passregion(e.g.,us-en) to improve relevance. skipDisambig: trueis useful when you know the exact entity you are searching for and want to skip DuckDuckGo's disambiguation page (which would returntype: Dand an emptyabstractText).