Web Search

llm-manager can automatically search the web when your chat messages contain research-oriented keywords. Results are fetched via SearXNG and injected into the prompt before your message, allowing the LLM to cite sources and provide up-to-date information.

Server-Side Flow

Web search runs entirely on the llm-manager server. External clients (chat frontends, curl, etc.) connect to llm-manager’s API proxy (default port 49222) just like any other chat request — no special headers or endpoints needed. The server intercepts chat completions requests, checks for search keywords, performs the SearXNG search, injects the results into the prompt, and forwards the enriched request to llama-server.

┌──────────┐     /v1/chat/completions      ┌──────────────────┐
│  Client  │ ──────────────────────────────►│ llm-manager API  │
│ (curl,   │ ◄──────────────────────────────│ proxy (port 49222)│
│  UI, etc)│     SSE streaming response     └────────┬─────────┘
└──────────┘                                        │
                                                    │ triggers SearXNG
                                                    ▼
                                           ┌──────────────────┐
                                           │   SearXNG        │
                                           │   instance       │
                                           └──────────────────┘

The web_search_engine_url config points to the SearXNG instance, not the client. Clients never need direct access to SearXNG — they only talk to llm-manager’s API proxy.

Trigger

Web search triggers when your message contains $web:

$web best model for coding 2026
$web compare qwen 3 and llama 4
$web recommend vision model

Configuration

Via Server Settings Panel

Open the Server Settings panel (press F2 or l when focused)
Navigate to the Web Search field using arrow keys
Press ↵ (Enter) to open the Web Search Picker dialog

The dialog (65 columns wide, 15 rows tall) shows:

Field	Type	Description
Enabled	Toggle	Shows “On” (green) or “Off” (gray) — press `↵` to toggle
Engine	Dropdown	Search engine: `searxng`
Engine URL	Text input	URL of your SearXNG instance (e.g., `https://search.example.com`)
API Key	Text input	Bearer token for authentication (optional, masked as `****` when set)

Navigation: ↑/↓ (or j/k) to move between fields, ↵ to toggle/edit, ⎋ (Esc) to close.

Via config.yaml

Add these fields to your ~/.config/llm-manager/config.yaml:

default:
  web_search_enabled: true
  web_search_engine: searxng
  web_search_engine_url: "https://search.example.com"
  web_search_api_key: null  # optional, omit or set to null if not needed

Per-Model Override

Web search settings can also be configured per-model in ~/.config/llm-manager/models/<model_name>.yaml:

web_search_enabled: true
web_search_engine: searxng
web_search_engine_url: "https://search.example.com"
web_search_api_key: null

Model-level settings override the global defaults.

How It Works

When a message matches a trigger keyword:

Query extraction — the full user message is used as the search query
SearXNG search — HTTP GET request to {engine_url}/search?q={query}&format=json
Result parsing — expects JSON with a results array; each result needs title, url, and content/snippet fields
Page fetching — Wikipedia results and up to 5 other URLs have their page content fetched in parallel
Context injection — results are prepended to the message as a [WEB CONTEXT]...[END WEB CONTEXT] block

Request Details

Endpoint: {engine_url}/search?q={url_encoded_query}&format=json
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
Authentication: Authorization: Bearer {api_key} header (only if api_key is configured)
Timeout: 15 seconds
Max results: 10

Injected Prompt Format

The web context is prepended to the user message like this:

[WEB CONTEXT]
INSTRUCTION: Cite sources using inline markdown links in your answer.

## Search Results
1. **Title** - URL
   snippet text

## Web Context
## [Title](URL)
...fetched page content...

[END WEB CONTEXT]

[Original user message]

Engine Support

Engine	Status	Notes
SearXNG	✅ Fully functional	Requires a configured `engine_url` pointing to a SearXNG instance

SearXNG Setup

SearXNG Settings

Minimal `settings.yml`

SearXNG requires a settings.yml configuration file. Create one before deploying:

use_default_settings: true

server:
  secret_key: "change-this-to-a-random-secret"  # generate with: python3 -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex(32))"
  port: 8081
  bind_address: "0.0.0.0"
  # Base URL — required to avoid 303 redirects
  # Set to the public URL where SearXNG is accessible
  base_url: "http://localhost:8081"  # or "https://search.example.com"

search:
  default_lang: en
  # Enable JSON format for API access (required for llm-manager web search)
  formats:
    - html
    - json

Note: The server.port in settings.yml is for SearXNG’s WSGI metadata. The actual listening port is controlled by the GRANIAN_PORT environment variable (default 8080). You must set -e GRANIAN_PORT=8081 to match your desired port.

Podman (standalone)

Run SearXNG as a standalone Podman container:

# Create config directory and settings file
mkdir -p ~/.searxng
cat > ~/.searxng/settings.yml << 'EOF'
use_default_settings: true

server:
  secret_key: "change-this-to-a-random-secret"
  port: 8081
  bind_address: "0.0.0.0"
  base_url: "http://localhost:8081"  # uncomment if behind reverse proxy

search:
  default_lang: en
  formats:
    - html
    - json
EOF

# Run the container
podman run -d \
  --name searxng \
  -p 8081:8081 \
  -e GRANIAN_PORT=8081 \
  -v ~/.searxng/settings.yml:/etc/searxng/settings.yml:Z \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  searxng/searxng:latest

Important: Do not use -v ~/.searxng:/etc/searxng/lib/searx:Z — it replaces the entire Python package directory with an empty directory, causing the container to crash. Only mount the settings.yml file.

After deployment, use http://localhost:8081 (or your public URL) as the Engine URL in llm-manager.

Docker Compose

For Docker Compose users, create docker-compose.yml:

services:
  searxng:
    image: searxng/searxng:latest
    ports:
      - "8081:8081"
    environment:
      - GRANIAN_PORT=8081
    volumes:
      - ~/.searxng/settings.yml:/etc/searxng/settings.yml:Z
    restart: unless-stopped

Run with:

docker compose up -d

podman-compose

For podman-compose users:

services:
  searxng:
    image: searxng/searxng:latest
    ports:
      - "8081:8081"
    environment:
      - GRANIAN_PORT=8081
    volumes:
      - ~/.searxng/settings.yml:/etc/searxng/settings.yml:Z
    restart: unless-stopped

Run with:

podman-compose up -d

Settings Panel Display

The LLM Settings panel shows the current web search status:

Web Search (Enabled: searxng)

Web Search (Disabled: searxng)

Troubleshooting

303 redirect — set server.base_url in settings.yaml to the public URL (e.g., http://localhost:8081 or https://search.example.com)
Search returns no results — verify the Engine URL is accessible and points to a running SearXNG instance
Timeout errors — web search has a 15-second timeout; slow SearXNG instances may need tuning
Authentication failures — if web_search_api_key is set, ensure the SearXNG instance accepts the Bearer token
Results not appearing in chat — check that trigger keywords are present in the message
HTTPS certificate errors — ensure the SearXNG instance has valid TLS certificates if using https://

Keyboard shortcuts

LLM Manager