crw-search — web search via crw's own search backend

When to use

• You have a question or topic, not a URL. Get candidate URLs first, then scrape the one that looks right.
• Step 1 in the crw ladder: most searches should end at step 2 (crw-scrape) — pick the best result URL and scrape it for full content.
• Token-heavy context? Pipe through a subprocess filter instead of dumping raw JSON. See crw-dynamic-search.
• The search backend is self-hosted and free — no API key, no per-query billing, no usage cap. Queries never leave your infrastructure in embedded/local mode.

Quick start

crw search "rust async http client"                              # text output
crw search "site:docs.rs tokio" --json --fields title,url,snippet --limit 5
crw search "CVE-2024-1234" --category news --time-range week
crw search "climate policy 2025" --json -o .crw/results.json
crw search "rust crates" --language en --limit 20

crw_search(query="rust async http client", limit=5, lang="en")
crw_search(query="latest CVE nginx", tbs="qdr:w", categories="news")
crw_search(query="openai pricing", scrapeOptions={"formats": ["markdown"]})

curl -X POST "$CRW_API_URL/v1/search" -H "Authorization: Bearer $CRW_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query":"rust async http","limit":5,"lang":"en"}'

Options

-l/--limit N

limit

--json

--format json

--fields title,url,snippet

-o FILE

--category news|images|videos|general|…

categories

--language en

lang

--time-range day|week|month|year

tbs: qdr:h|qdr:d|qdr:w|qdr:m|qdr:y

--safesearch 0|1|2

--searxng-url URL

$CRW_SEARXNG_URL

sources: ["web","news","images"]

scrapeOptions: {formats:["markdown"]}

--fields

title

url

description

snippet

position

score

category

snippet

description

A note on result scores

score

score

position

Tips

• No results / 403? The search backend needs JSON output enabled in its config. Run

  crw setup --local

  to spin up a pre-configured sidecar automatically. Public instances usually block JSON with 403/429.

• --fields

  saves context.

  --json --fields title,url,snippet --limit 5

  is one call; piping to

  jq

  is two. Prefer the flag.
• Inline scraping via MCP. Pass

  scrapeOptions: {formats: ["markdown"]}

  to get page content alongside search results in one round-trip. There is no

  --scrape

  CLI flag — use the MCP/REST path for this.
• Time-sensitive queries. Use

  --time-range week

  (CLI) or

  tbs: "qdr:w"

  (MCP/REST) for news, CVEs, releases, or any freshness-sensitive topic.
• After search, scrape the winner.

  crw search "…"

  returns candidates;

  crw scrape "<url>"

  gets the full content. Don't try to read content from search snippets alone.
• Write large result sets to

  .crw/

  . Never stream a 20-result JSON blob to stdout into context. Use

  -o .crw/results.json

  then

  jq

  /

  grep

  .

See also

• crw-scrape — scrape the URL you found
• crw-dynamic-search — filter output in a subprocess to save context (use this on token-heavy tasks)
• crw — hub skill with the full workflow ladder