MetaSearchMCP

Open-source metasearch backend for MCP, AI agents, and LLM workflows.

MetaSearchMCP aggregates results from multiple search providers, normalizes them into a stable JSON schema, and exposes both an HTTP API and an MCP server for agent tooling.

Positioning

MCP-first metasearch backend
Structured search API for AI pipelines
Multi-provider search orchestration with deduplication and fallback
Python FastAPI alternative to browser-first metasearch projects

Why It Exists

Most search aggregators are designed around browser UX: HTML pages, pagination, and interactive result cards. Agents and LLM workflows need a different contract: predictable JSON, stable field names, partial-failure tolerance, and provider-level execution metadata.

MetaSearchMCP is built for that machine-consumable workflow. The design is centered on search orchestration, normalized contracts, and MCP integration.

Core Features

Concurrent multi-provider aggregation
Unified result schema for web, academic, developer, and knowledge sources
Provider-level timeout isolation and partial-failure handling
Result deduplication across engines
Provider selection by explicit names or semantic tags such as web, academic, code, and google
Final result caps for agent-friendly payload sizing
HTTP API with OpenAPI docs
MCP server over stdio for Claude Desktop, Cline, Continue, and similar clients
Configurable provider allowlist via environment variables

Google Support

Google support now includes a direct scraper provider implemented inside this project.

The direct Google implementation uses browser-like requests, consent cookie handling, locale-aware query parameters, and resilient HTML result parsing. It is implemented locally in this repository.

Currently supported Google providers:

Provider	Env var	Notes
Direct Google	`ALLOW_UNSTABLE_PROVIDERS=true`	Primary path; HTML scraping, best effort, may be blocked from datacenter IPs
serpbase.dev	`SERPBASE_API_KEY`	Pay-per-use; typically cheaper for low-volume usage
serper.dev	`SERPER_API_KEY`	Includes a free tier, then pay-per-use

Provider priority for /search/google is now google first, then google_serpbase, then google_serper.

Supported Providers

Google

Provider	Name	Method
Direct Google	`google`	HTML scraping with browser-like request handling
SerpBase	`google_serpbase`	Hosted Google SERP API
Serper	`google_serper`	Hosted Google SERP API

Web Search

Provider	Name	Method
DuckDuckGo	`duckduckgo`	HTML scraping
Bing	`bing`	RSS feed
Yahoo	`yahoo`	HTML scraping, best effort
Brave	`brave`	Official Search API
You.com	`youcom`	Official Search API
Mwmbl	`mwmbl`	Public JSON API
Marginalia	`marginalia`	Public JSON API, no key required
Ecosia	`ecosia`	HTML scraping
Mojeek	`mojeek`	HTML scraping
Startpage	`startpage`	HTML scraping, best effort
Qwant	`qwant`	Internal JSON API, best effort
Yandex	`yandex`	HTML scraping, best effort
Baidu	`baidu`	JSON endpoint, best effort
Seznam	`seznam`	HTML scraping (Czech web), no key required
Naver	`naver`	HTML scraping (Korean web), no key required
Ahmia	`ahmia`	HTML scraping (Tor .onion services), no key required

Knowledge And Reference

Provider	Name	Method
Wikipedia	`wikipedia`	MediaWiki API
Wikidata	`wikidata`	Wikidata API
Wikiquote	`wikiquote`	MediaWiki API
Wikisource	`wikisource`	MediaWiki API, no key required
Wikibooks	`wikibooks`	MediaWiki API, no key required
Wiktionary	`wiktionary`	MediaWiki API, no key required
Wikivoyage	`wikivoyage`	MediaWiki API, no key required
Wikiversity	`wikiversity`	MediaWiki API, no key required
Internet Archive	`internet_archive`	Advanced Search API
Open Library	`openlibrary`	Open Library search API

Places And Geocoding

Provider	Name	Method
Open-Meteo Geocoding	`openmeteo`	Geocoding REST API, no key required
OpenStreetMap (Nominatim)	`nominatim`	Nominatim public API, no key required

Developer Sources

Provider	Name	Method
GitHub	`github`	GitHub REST API
GitLab	`gitlab`	GitLab REST API
Codeberg	`codeberg`	Codeberg REST API
Stack Overflow	`stackoverflow`	Stack Exchange API
Sourcegraph	`sourcegraph`	Streaming search API, no key required
Hacker News	`hackernews`	Algolia HN API
Hugging Face	`huggingface`	Hub REST API, no key required
Reddit	`reddit`	Reddit API
npm	`npm`	npm registry API
PyPI	`pypi`	JSON API
RubyGems	`rubygems`	RubyGems search API
crates.io	`crates`	crates.io API
lib.rs	`lib_rs`	HTML scraping
Docker Hub	`dockerhub`	Docker Hub search API
pkg.go.dev	`pkg_go_dev`	HTML scraping
MetaCPAN	`metacpan`	MetaCPAN REST API
Maven Central	`maven`	Solr search API, no key required

Academic Sources

Provider	Name	Method
arXiv	`arxiv`	Atom API
PubMed	`pubmed`	NCBI E-utilities
Semantic Scholar	`semanticscholar`	Graph API
CrossRef	`crossref`	REST API
OpenAlex	`openalex`	OpenAlex REST API, no key required
DOAJ	`doaj`	DOAJ public REST API, no key required
Europe PMC	`europepmc`	Europe PMC REST API (PubMed + preprints), no key required
ClinicalTrials.gov	`clinicaltrials`	ClinicalTrials.gov v2 API (clinical studies), no key required
DataCite	`datacite`	DataCite DOI search API, no key required
Zenodo	`zenodo`	Zenodo REST API, no key required
OSF Preprints	`osf_preprints`	OSF API v2 (PsyArXiv, SocArXiv, etc.), no key required
ORCID	`orcid`	ORCID public API (researcher profiles), no key required
Google Books	`google_books`	Google Books API, no key required

Legal Sources

Provider	Name	Method
CourtListener	`courtlistener`	Free Law Project REST API, no key required

Patent Sources

Provider	Name	Method
Google Patents	`google_patents`	Public XHR query API, no key required

News Sources

Provider	Name	Method
Google News	`google_news`	Public RSS feed, no key required
Bing News	`bing_news`	Public RSS feed, no key required
Wikinews	`wikinews`	MediaWiki API, no key required
Lobsters	`lobsters`	Lobste.rs JSON API, no key required

Social Sources

Provider	Name	Method
Mastodon	`mastodon`	Mastodon public API, no key required
Bluesky	`bluesky`	Bluesky AppView public API, no key required
Lemmy	`lemmy`	Lemmy public API, no key required

Media Sources

Provider	Name	Method
Wikimedia Commons	`wikimedia_commons`	MediaWiki API, no key required
Openverse	`openverse`	Openverse REST API, no key required
Flickr	`flickr`	Public feed API, no key required
Unsplash	`unsplash`	Unsplash REST API (requires `UNSPLASH_ACCESS_KEY`)
NASA	`nasa`	NASA Image and Video Library API, no key required
Met Museum	`metmuseum`	Met Museum public collection API, no key required
PeerTube	`peertube`	Public REST API, no key required
Dailymotion	`dailymotion`	Public REST API, no key required
TVMaze	`tvmaze`	TVMaze public API, no key required
Radio Browser	`radio_browser`	Radio Browser public API, no key required
MusicBrainz	`musicbrainz`	MusicBrainz public API (recordings/artists), no key required
Discogs	`discogs`	Discogs database search API, no key required
Kitsu	`kitsu`	Kitsu anime & manga catalog API (JSON:API), no key required
Steam	`steam`	Steam Store search API, no key required
TheMealDB	`themealdb`	TheMealDB public API, no key required
TheCocktailDB	`cocktaildb`	TheCocktailDB public API, no key required
iTunes	`itunes`	iTunes Search API (podcasts), no key required

Finance Sources

Provider	Name	Key Required	Free Tier
Yahoo Finance	`yahoo_finance`	No	Unofficial endpoint, no key needed
Alpha Vantage	`alpha_vantage`	`ALPHA_VANTAGE_API_KEY`	25 req/day — get key
Finnhub	`finnhub`	`FINNHUB_API_KEY`	60 req/min — get key
CoinGecko	`coingecko`	No	Cryptocurrency search API, no key needed

Installation

One-command local install:

python scripts/install.py

Install, run tests, and start the HTTP API:

python scripts/install.py --dev --test --run

Deploy with Docker Compose:

python scripts/install.py --mode docker

The installer creates .env from .env.example when .env does not already exist. Existing .env files are kept unless --force-env is passed.

Manual install:

git clone https://github.com/gefsikatsinelou/MetaSearchMCP
cd MetaSearchMCP
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Or with uv:

uv pip install -e ".[dev]"

Configuration

Copy .env.example to .env and configure any providers you want to enable.

cp .env.example .env

Key settings:

HOST=0.0.0.0
PORT=8000
DEFAULT_TIMEOUT=10
AGGREGATOR_TIMEOUT=15

SERPBASE_API_KEY=
SERPER_API_KEY=
BRAVE_API_KEY=
YDC_API_KEY=
GITHUB_TOKEN=
STACKEXCHANGE_API_KEY=
REDDIT_CLIENT_ID=
REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET=
NCBI_API_KEY=
SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY=
ALPHA_VANTAGE_API_KEY=
FINNHUB_API_KEY=

ENABLED_PROVIDERS=
ALLOW_UNSTABLE_PROVIDERS=false
MAX_RESULTS_PER_PROVIDER=10

To enable You.com, set YDC_API_KEY and either let it participate in the default web-provider pool or explicitly target it with providers: ["youcom"].

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/search \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "playwright locator best practices",
    "providers": ["youcom"],
    "params": {"num_results": 5}
  }'

Running

HTTP API

python -m metasearchmcp.server
# or
metasearchmcp

The API starts on http://localhost:8000.

MCP Server

python -m metasearchmcp.broker
# or
metasearchmcp-mcp

The MCP server communicates over stdio.

Docker

docker build -t metasearchmcp .
docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 --env-file .env metasearchmcp

Or with Compose:

docker compose up --build

HTTP API

`POST /search`

Aggregate across all enabled providers or a selected provider subset.

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/search \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "rust async runtime",
    "providers": ["duckduckgo", "wikipedia"],
    "params": {"num_results": 5, "max_total_results": 8, "language": "en"}
  }'

You can also narrow providers by tags:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/search \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "transformer attention",
    "tags": ["academic", "knowledge"],
    "params": {"num_results": 5, "max_total_results": 6}
  }'

When multiple tags are provided, the default behavior is tag_match="any". Set tag_match to "all" when you want providers that satisfy every requested tag:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/search \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "npm cli argument parser",
    "tags": ["code", "packages"],
    "tag_match": "all",
    "params": {"num_results": 5, "max_total_results": 6}
  }'

num_results controls how many results each provider can contribute. max_total_results caps the final merged response after deduplication.

`POST /search/google`

Search Google through the configured Google provider chain. If ALLOW_UNSTABLE_PROVIDERS=true, MetaSearchMCP will prefer the direct google provider automatically.

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/search/google \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "site:github.com rust tokio"}'

To force the direct Google route explicitly:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/search/google \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "site:github.com rust tokio", "provider": "google"}'

`GET /search/suggest`

Query autocomplete suggestions for a partial search term. Uses the public DuckDuckGo autocomplete endpoint — no API key required.

curl "http://localhost:8000/search/suggest?q=python&limit=5"

Returns query, suggestions, count, and source (duckduckgo). limit defaults to 8 and is capped at 20.

`GET /providers`

Return the currently available provider catalog.

The response includes provider descriptions and a tag-to-provider index for quick discovery.

You can filter the catalog by tag:

curl "http://localhost:8000/providers?tag=academic&tag=web"

Use tag_match=all to require every tag instead of the default any-match behavior:

curl "http://localhost:8000/providers?tag=code&tag=packages&tag_match=all"

`GET /health`

Simple health check endpoint. Returns service status, version, provider count, and the current provider name list.

`GET /cache/stats`

Inspect the shared in-memory search result cache (used by the orchestrator to avoid re-hitting external providers for identical requests within the TTL window).

curl "http://localhost:8000/cache/stats"

Returns enabled, entries (live cached results), max_entries (capacity), ttl_seconds, and insertions (total keys written since process start — a monotonic counter unaffected by expiry or eviction).

Response Schema

Every aggregated response includes:

engine
query
results
related_searches
suggestions
answer_box
timing_ms
providers
errors

Every result item includes:

title
url
snippet
source
rank
provider
published_date
extra

Example response:

{
  "engine": "metasearchmcp",
  "query": "rust async runtime",
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "Tokio - An asynchronous Rust runtime",
      "url": "https://tokio.rs",
      "snippet": "Tokio is an event-driven, non-blocking I/O platform...",
      "source": "tokio.rs",
      "rank": 1,
      "provider": "duckduckgo",
      "published_date": null,
      "extra": {}
    }
  ],
  "related_searches": [],
  "suggestions": [],
  "answer_box": null,
  "timing_ms": 843.2,
  "providers": [
    {
      "name": "duckduckgo",
      "success": true,
      "result_count": 10,
      "latency_ms": 840.1,
      "error": null
    }
  ],
  "errors": []
}

MCP Tools

MetaSearchMCP exposes these MCP tools:

search_web
search_google
search_academic
search_github
compare_engines
search_finance
search_code
search_news
search_social
search_images
search_videos
list_providers

search_web also accepts optional tags so agents can limit search to categories such as web, academic, code, or google. When multiple tags are present, tag_match="all" requires a provider to satisfy the full set. All search tools accept max_total_results to keep the final payload compact.

Example Claude Desktop config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "MetaSearchMCP": {
      "command": "metasearchmcp-mcp",
      "env": {
        "ALLOW_UNSTABLE_PROVIDERS": "true",
        "SERPBASE_API_KEY": "your_key",
        "SERPER_API_KEY": "your_key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Development

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest
uvicorn metasearchmcp.server:app --reload

Architecture

The public package is organized around these modules:

contracts.py: request/response data models (Pydantic schemas)
config.py: application settings loaded from environment variables
catalog.py: provider discovery, filtering, and selection by name or tags
orchestrator.py: concurrent search execution across providers and result assembly
merge.py: URL canonicalization and cross-engine result deduplication
ranking.py: optional consensus/relevance result re-ranking (opt-in via RANK_RESULTS)
server.py: FastAPI application and Uvicorn server entrypoint
broker.py: MCP server exposing search tools over stdio
api/routes.py: HTTP endpoint handlers (search, suggest, health, providers catalog)
cli.py: interactive first-run setup wizard (metasearchmcp-setup)

Entry-point wrappers (main.py for HTTP, mcp_server.py for MCP) and legacy compatibility shims (aggregator.py, dedup.py, schema.py) are kept for backwards compatibility.

Roadmap

Caching and provider-aware query reuse
Better scoring and ranking signals across providers
Streaming aggregation responses
Provider health telemetry
More first-party API integrations where they improve reliability

License

MIT

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
metasearchmcp		metasearchmcp
scripts		scripts
tests		tests
.dockerignore		.dockerignore
.env.example		.env.example
.gitignore		.gitignore
Dockerfile		Dockerfile
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
compose.yaml		compose.yaml
pyproject.toml		pyproject.toml
uv.lock		uv.lock

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MetaSearchMCP

Positioning

Why It Exists

Core Features

Google Support

Supported Providers

Google

Web Search

Knowledge And Reference

Places And Geocoding

Developer Sources

Academic Sources

Legal Sources

Patent Sources

News Sources

Social Sources

Media Sources

Finance Sources

Installation

Configuration

Running

HTTP API

MCP Server

Docker

HTTP API

POST /search

POST /search/google

GET /search/suggest

GET /providers

GET /health

GET /cache/stats

Response Schema

MCP Tools

Development

Architecture

Roadmap

License

About

Topics

Resources

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Releases

Packages

Contributors

Languages

`POST /search`

`POST /search/google`

`GET /search/suggest`

`GET /providers`

`GET /health`

`GET /cache/stats`