# Features ## Search - **Web search** — aggregates results from Brave, DuckDuckGo, Google, and Bing concurrently - **Image search** — masonry grid respecting natural aspect ratios, with lightbox viewer and keyboard navigation (←/→ to browse, Escape to close) - **Image size filter** — filter images by size (Large, Medium, Small) applied server-side across all engines - **Sort order** — sort results by engine rank (default), newest first, or oldest first - **Autocomplete** — live search suggestions as you type (200ms debounce, ↑↓/Enter/Escape keyboard support) - **Pagination** — navigate through result pages; URL reflects current state (`?q=...&page=2`) - **URL deduplication** — duplicate results from multiple engines are merged automatically - **Domain exclusion** — exclude specific websites from all search results; settings persist in SQLite - **Engine filter** — restrict a search to specific engines via the `engines` query parameter (e.g. `engines=google,bing`) - **Per-engine stats** — result counts, status (ok / error / timeout), and error messages per engine shown in a collapsible bar ## Search Engines - **Google** — direct scraping via SearXNG's async progressive response API (`asearch=arc`); CAPTCHA detection - **Bing** — direct scraping with SearXNG-style cookies and base64 URL decoding; automatic Yahoo fallback on CAPTCHA - **DuckDuckGo** — HTML Lite scraping for web, API for images - **Brave** — Brave Search API for web and images ## Engine Management - **4 built-in engines**: Brave, DuckDuckGo, Google, Bing - Enable or disable engines via the UI or API at runtime; settings persist in SQLite - **Drag-and-drop reordering** — set engine priority order; affects result ordering and display badges - Each engine supports both web and image search categories - Google and Bing include automatic fallback mechanisms for resilience ## Search History - **Automatic recording** — every search query is saved with timestamp and category - **History page** (`/history`) — paginated, date-grouped list of recent searches (Today, Yesterday, etc.) - **Re-run any query** — click a history entry to instantly re-search it - **Delete entries** — remove individual entries or clear all history at once ## Analytics Dashboard - **Stats page** (`/stats`) — full analytics dashboard with configurable time range (7 / 30 / 90 days) - **KPI cards** — total searches, total clicks, click-through rate, average clicked result position - **Daily trend chart** — bar chart of search volume per day - **Top queries** — ranked list of most-searched terms with counts - **Clicks by engine** — bar chart showing which engines' results get clicked most - **Click position distribution** — histogram of which result ranks users click on - **Top clicked results** — ranked list of most-clicked URLs with title, engine, and count - **Click tracking** — every result click is recorded server-side (fire-and-forget from the frontend) ## Caching - **Redis cache** — identical searches served from Redis to reduce upstream load and latency - **Configurable TTL** — cache duration adjustable from 0 (disabled) to 168 hours (1 week); default 6 hours - **Cache status** — search response includes a `cached` flag; the stats bar indicates cache hits - **UI controls** — TTL slider + preset buttons, Redis URL input, and flush button in Settings → Cache tab - **Optional** — when `REDIS_URL` is not set or Redis is unreachable, caching is silently disabled - **Deterministic keys** — cache key derived from query + category + page + image_size + engines ## Bookmarks - **Bookmark any result** — click the bookmark icon on web or image results to save them - **Bookmarks page** (`/bookmarks`) — dedicated page to browse all saved items - **Filter by type** — tabs to filter All / Web / Images - **Masonry image grid** — saved images displayed in a masonry layout with hover overlays - **Remove bookmarks** — delete individual bookmarks from the bookmarks page - **Persistent storage** — bookmarks stored in SQLite alongside other app data ## Background Images - **Homepage backgrounds** — random background image displayed on the home page (sourced from Unsplash / Picsum) - **Local caching** — images are downloaded and stored in `data/backgrounds/` to avoid re-fetching - **Auto-refresh** — configurable refresh interval (1–1440 minutes, default 30) fetches new images automatically - **Background gallery** (`/backgrounds`) — browse and manage all downloaded backgrounds; click to preview, view file size and source - **Manual refresh** — refresh button in the gallery to fetch a new image immediately - **Enable / disable** — toggle backgrounds on or off in Settings → Background tab - **iOS color sampling** — samples edge pixels from the background to set the `theme-color` meta tag, preventing white/black bars in Safari ## Settings - **Unified settings modal** — single ⚙ button opens a tabbed modal with four tabs: 1. **Engines** — enable/disable and drag-to-reorder search engines 2. **Excluded Sites** — add or remove domains from the search blocklist 3. **Cache** — view Redis status, set TTL, update Redis URL, flush cache 4. **Background** — enable/disable background images, set refresh interval ## REST API - Full REST API for search, autocomplete, engine management, bookmarks, history, stats, and settings - `/api/search` accepts both **GET and POST** requests with query string parameters - **`format=llm`** — minimal LLM-optimised response: only `query`, `results` (title, url, snippet, date), and `total_results`; no engine noise - **`max_results`** — hard limit on returned results (1–100); `numResults` is a supported alias - Compatibility parameters: `pageNumber` (alias for `page`), `numResults`, `format`, `imageProxy`, `safesearch` - Every result includes `result_id`, `rank`, `engine`, and `published_date` - `has_next` and `total_results` fields for cursor-aware pagination - `X-Response-Time-Ms` response header on all endpoints - OpenAPI specification with interactive docs via [Swagger UI](https://swagger.io/tools/swagger-ui/) (`/docs`) and [Redoc](https://github.com/Redocly/redoc) (`/redoc`) ## MCP Tool Server - **`/api/mcp`** — [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/) (MCP) endpoint; exposes HeySearch as a native tool for LLMs - Compatible with Claude Desktop, Cursor, Continue, VS Code Copilot, and any MCP-capable client - **Transport**: Streamable HTTP (JSON-RPC 2.0 POST) - **Available tools**: `search` (web + image search) and `autocomplete` - `search` tool supports `query`, `category`, `num_results` (1–20), `engines`, `sort`, and `date_filter` arguments - Add to Claude Desktop by pointing `url` at `http://your-host/api/mcp` with `"transport": "http"` ## Reliability - **Retry mechanism** — failed upstream requests are retried with exponential backoff (via [tenacity](https://github.com/jd/tenacity), 2 attempts) - **Error reporting** — when an upstream engine fails or times out, the UI shows a toast notification identifying which engine had issues - **Graceful degradation** — partial failures don't block results from other engines ## UI / UX - **Mobile-first** responsive design built with React, Tailwind CSS, and shadcn theming - Web results show favicons, engine badges, publish dates, and content snippets - Image results in a masonry grid with hover previews and a full-screen lightbox - **Visited link colours** — clicked links turn purple to distinguish from unvisited results - **Dropdown navigation menu** — consistent ☰ menu across all pages (search, bookmarks, history, stats, gallery) - Keyboard navigation for autocomplete suggestions (↑↓ arrows, Enter, Escape) - URL-based routing with browser history support — shareable search URLs ## Accessibility - **Skip to main content** link for keyboard users - Image cards are real `` links (Cmd/Ctrl-click, right-click, open-in-new-tab all work) - `aria-label` on all icon-only buttons and interactive elements - Search input with `