Fosowl/agenticSeek · error · ValueError

SearxNG base URL must be provided either as an argument or v

Error message

SearxNG base URL must be provided either as an argument or via the SEARXNG_BASE_URL environment variable.

What it means

The SearxSearch tool's __init__ requires a SearxNG instance URL, taken from the base_url argument or the SEARXNG_BASE_URL environment variable. If both are missing it raises ValueError immediately at construction time, because the tool cannot function without a SearxNG endpoint.

Source

Thrown at sources/tools/searxSearch.py:27

from sources.tools.tools import Tools

class searxSearch(Tools):
    def __init__(self, base_url: str = None):
        """
        A tool for searching a SearxNG instance and extracting URLs and titles.
        """
        super().__init__()
        self.tag = "web_search"
        self.name = "searxSearch"
        self.description = "A tool for searching a SearxNG for web search"
        self.base_url = base_url or os.getenv("SEARXNG_BASE_URL")  # Requires a SearxNG base URL
        self.user_agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/134.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
        self.paywall_keywords = [
            "Member-only", "access denied", "restricted content", "404", "this page is not working"
        ]
        if not self.base_url:
            raise ValueError("SearxNG base URL must be provided either as an argument or via the SEARXNG_BASE_URL environment variable.")

    def link_valid(self, link):
        """check if a link is valid."""
        # TODO find a better way
        if not link.startswith("http"):
            return "Status: Invalid URL"
        
        headers = {"User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36"}
        try:
            response = requests.get(link, headers=headers, timeout=5)
            status = response.status_code
            if status == 200:
                content = response.text.lower()
                if any(keyword in content for keyword in self.paywall_keywords):
                    return "Status: Possible Paywall"
                return "Status: OK"
            elif status == 404:
                return "Status: 404 Not Found"

View on GitHub (pinned to ae57a23577)

Solutions

1. Set the env var: export SEARXNG_BASE_URL=https://your-searxng-instance (and ensure .env is loaded before constructing the tool)
2. Pass base_url explicitly: SearxSearch(base_url='https://searx.example.com')
3. Verify the variable name spelling and that it is visible to the process (print os.getenv in the same interpreter)
4. Stand up or reach a SearxNG instance (public instance or docker run searxng) if you have none

Example fix

// before
search = SearxSearch()  # ValueError: no base URL
// after
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv
load_dotenv()
assert os.getenv('SEARXNG_BASE_URL'), 'Set SEARXNG_BASE_URL'
search = SearxSearch()

import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv
load_dotenv()
if not (os.getenv('SEARXNG_BASE_URL') or '').startswith('http'):
    raise SystemExit('Set SEARXNG_BASE_URL (e.g. https://searx.example.com) before constructing SearxSearch')

try:
    search = SearxSearch()
except ValueError as e:
    logger.error('SearxNG not configured: %s', e)
    raise SystemExit('Provide base_url or SEARXNG_BASE_URL env var') from e

When it happens

Trigger: Instantiating SearxSearch() (or whatever wraps it) with no base_url argument while SEARXNG_BASE_URL is unset in the environment — the `if not self.base_url` check at searxSearch.py:27 fires.

Common situations: Fresh checkout where .env was never created or not loaded (load_dotenv not called before construction); SEARXNG_BASE_URL defined in one shell but the app runs in another; typo'd env var name; self-hosted SearxNG not reachable so the URL was never configured.

Understand the failure class

Background: "environment variable is not set" and "Missing keys in environment" errors: what missing required env var messages mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• Model not set
• Prompt file not found at path: {file_path}
• Permission denied to read prompt file at path: {file_path}
• Unknown provider: {provider_name}
• API key {api_key_var} not found in .env file. Please add it

AI-assisted analysis of Fosowl/agenticSeek@ae57a23577 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ec09a6baa1de4854. Report an issue: GitHub.