Use searXNG in Dify

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Tavily is down again, even with a VPN. There’s an urgent need for an open-source search engine replacement, and searXNG is a good choice.

Both searXNG and Dify are still relatively young, with some issues in project design and usability—you’ll experience these firsthand.

If you install it following the official website or some video tutorials, you’ll likely encounter an error when Dify calls searXNG:

Input should be a valid dictionary

Please follow the installation and configuration steps in this article strictly.

Using searXNG in Dify

Installation of Dify is omitted.

1. Install searXNG

git clone git@github.com:searxng/searxng-docker.git
cd searxng-docker

2. Modify searXNG Configuration

  1. Modify the hidden file .env in the current directory, changing SEARXNG_HOSTNAME to the address you want to listen on (if you want to access it within the local network, not just localhost).

    SEARXNG_HOSTNAME=192.168.0.104:28080 # This port must match the port in the docker-compose.yaml below

  2. Modify the docker-compose.yaml file in the current directory, removing Caddy-related content (Caddy is similar to Nginx but requires certificate configuration, which we don’t need here). You can directly copy the following content to overwrite the original file.

    services:
     redis:
     container_name: redis
     image: docker.io/valkey/valkey:8-alpine
     command: valkey-server --save 30 1 --loglevel warning
     restart: unless-stopped
     networks:
     - searxng
     volumes:
     - valkey-data2:/data
     cap_drop:
     - ALL
     cap_add:
     - SETGID
     - SETUID
     - DAC_OVERRIDE
     logging:
     driver: "json-file"
     options:
     max-size: "1m"
     max-file: "1" 

     searxng:
     container_name: searxng
     image: docker.io/searxng/searxng:latest
     restart: unless-stopped
     user: "1000:1000"
     networks:
     - searxng
     ports:
     - "28080:8080" # This port on the left must match the port configured in SEARXNG_HOSTNAME
     volumes:
     - ./searxng:/etc/searxng:rw
     environment:
     - SEARXNG_BASE_URL=http://${SEARXNG_HOSTNAME:-localhost}/
     - UWSGI_WORKERS=${SEARXNG_UWSGI_WORKERS:-4}
     - UWSGI_THREADS=${SEARXNG_UWSGI_THREADS:-4}
     cap_drop:
     - ALL
     cap_add:
     - CHOWN
     - SETGID
     - SETUID
     logging:
     driver: "json-file"
     options:
     max-size: "1m"
     max-file: "1" 

    networks:
     searxng: 

    volumes:
     valkey-data2:

  3. The most crucial step is to modify the ./searxng/settings.yml file. Delete all its contents and paste the following content. Otherwise, Dify will report an error when called（https://github.com/langgenius/dify-official-plugins/issues/551）：

    # 详细查看 https://docs.searxng.org/admin/settings/settings.html 文档
    use_default_settings: true

    general:
     debug: false
     instance_name: "我的专属搜索引擎"

    server:
     secret_key: "ultrasecretkey"
     limiter: false # 关闭访问频率限制
     image_proxy: true
    search:
     autocomplete: "baidu"
     default_lang: "zh-CN"
     formats:
     - html
     - json # 允许以 json 形式返回结果
    ui:
     static_use_hash: true
     default_locale: "zh-Hans-CN" 
     theme_args:
     simple_style: auto

    engines:
     - name: bing
     engine: bing
     shortcut: bi
     timeout: 5.0
     disabled: false

     - name: bing images
     engine: bing_images
     shortcut: bii

     - name: bing news
     engine: bing_news
     shortcut: bin

     - name: bilibili
     engine: bilibili
     shortcut: bil
     timeout: 5.0
     disabled: false
     # 360 搜索
     - name: 360search
     engine: 360search
     shortcut: 360so
     timeout: 5.0
     disabled: false
     # 百度
     - name: baidu
     engine: baidu
     shortcut: baidu
     timeout: 5.0
     disabled: false

     - name: baidu images
     baidu_category: images
     categories: [images]
     engine: baidu
     shortcut: bdi
     disabled: false

     - name: baidu kaifa
     baidu_category: it
     categories: [it]
     engine: baidu
     shortcut: bdk
     disabled: false

     # 搜狗
     - name: sogou
     engine: sogou
     shortcut: sogou
     timeout: 5.0 # 搜狗有点慢，需要额外加点超时时长

     # 爱奇艺
     - name: iqiyi
     engine: iqiyi
     shortcut: iq

     # 搜狗视频
     - name: sogou_video
     engine: sogou_video
     shortcut: sogouv

     # 搜狗｜微信
     - name: sogou wechat
     engine: sogou_wechat
     short: sogouw
     disabled: false
     # 禁用默认启用的引擎
     - name: arch linux wiki
     engine: archlinux
     disabled: true
     - name: duckduckgo
     engine: duckduckgo
     distabled: true
     - name: github
     engine: github
     shortcut: gh
     disabled: true
     - name: wikipedia
     engine: wikipedia
     disabled: true
     - name: currency
     engine: currency_convert
     categories: general
     shortcut: cc
     disabled: true
     - name: startpage
     engine: startpage
     shortcut: sp
     disabled: true
     - name: qwant
     qwant_categ: web
     engine: qwant
     shortcut: qw
     disabled: true
     - name: dictzone
     engine: dictzone
     shortcut: dc
     disabled: true
     - name: lingva
     engine: lingva
     shortcut: lv
     disabled: true
     - name: mymemory translated
     engine: translated
     shortcut: tl
     timeout: 5.0
     disabled: true
     - name: brave
     engine: brave
     shortcut: br
     disabled: true
     - name: duckduckgo
     engine: duckduckgo
     shortcut: ddg
     disabled: true
     - name: wikidata
     engine: wikidata
     shortcut: wd
     disabled: true

    redis:
     url: redis://redis:6379/0

    categories_as_tabs:
     general: #综合
     images: #图片
     videos: #视频
     news: #新闻
     #map: #地图
     #music: #音乐
     #it: #信息技术
     #science: #科学
     #files: #文件
     #social media: #社会媒体

  4. Replace ultrasecretkey in searxng/settings.yml with a new secret key; otherwise, the startup will fail.

    sed -i "s|ultrasecretkey|$(openssl rand -hex 32)|g" searxng/settings.yml

  5. Start the searXNG service.docker compose up -dAt this point, you can use searXNG by accessing http://192.168.0.104:28080. (Remember to replace it with the IP and port you configured.)

Using searXNG in Dify

  1. Click Plugins in the top-right corner, then Install Plugin, search for SearXNG in the Marketplace, and click Install.



  2. After installation, you can see SearXNG in the Tools section. Click Authorize and enter the address of SearXNG.


  3. Create a blank application in Studio – Agent. At this point, you can enable searxng in the tools. Once enabled, you can search for some time-sensitive data.



Using searXNG in LangChain

I’ll use Ollama as an example to demonstrate using searXNG in LangChain.

Please install the dependencies first:

pip install langchain_community langchain_ollama

Simple Test to Verify searXNG Capabilities

from langchain_community.utilities import SearxSearchWrapper

search_tool = SearxSearchWrapper(searx_host="http://192.168.0.104:28080")
result = search_tool.run("Please tell me the CPI index of China in April 2025.")
print(result)

Integration into an Agent

from langchain_ollama import ChatOllama

llm = ChatOllama(model="qwen2.5:latest", base_url="http://192.168.0.99:11434")

from langchain.agents import load_tools

tools = load_tools(
    ["searx-search"],
    searx_host="http://192.168.0.104:28080"
)

# 示例：在 Agent 中使用
from langchain.agents import initialize_agent

agent = initialize_agent(
    tools=tools,
    llm=llm,
    agent="zero-shot-react-description",
    verbose=True
)

result = agent.invoke("请告诉我2025-5-20南京天气")
print(result)

The result is shown in the following image:

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