name: wigolo description: Local-first web intelligence MCP server for AI coding agents. Ten tools for search, fetch, crawl, cache, extract, find similar, research, agent-driven data gathering, page diffing, and change watching. No API keys. Results cached in a local knowledge store. author: KnockOutEZ license: AGPL-3.0-only repository: https://github.com/KnockOutEZ/wigolo transport: stdio install: npx wigolo runtime: node min_runtime_version: "20" tools:

• name: fetch description: Fetch one URL, return clean markdown. Auto-routes between HTTP and browser engine. Supports sections, auth, screenshots, browser actions.
• name: search description: Search the web, return extracted markdown per result. Single query or array of query variants. Domain, category, date filters. Formats include ML-scored highlights with citations for host-LLM synthesis.
• name: crawl description: Crawl a site from a seed URL. BFS, DFS, sitemap, or map (URL-only) strategies with regex include/exclude filters.
• name: cache description: Full-text search over previously fetched content. URL glob, date filters, stats, clear, and change detection via re-fetch.
• name: extract description: Structured extraction from URL or raw HTML. Modes: selector (CSS), tables, metadata (meta + JSON-LD), schema (heuristic field matching), structured (tables + dl + JSON-LD + chart hints + key-value pairs in one call).
• name: find_similar description: Find pages similar to a URL or concept. Hybrid cache (keyword search + embeddings) + optional web supplement.
• name: research description: Multi-step research pipeline. Question decomposition, parallel sub-search, source synthesis with citations. Quick, standard, or comprehensive depth.
• name: agent description: Natural-language data gathering. Plans searches/URLs, fetches in parallel within page and time budgets, optionally applies a JSON Schema to each page.
• name: diff description: Compare two page versions — a live URL vs its cached copy, two URLs, or two markdown blobs. Unified patch, per-section hunks, or a counts summary at line, word, or section granularity.
• name: watch description: Monitor a page for changes over time. Create lazy watch jobs on one or many URLs, list them, and check on demand with optional SSRF-guarded webhook delivery.

wigolo

Local-first web intelligence MCP server for AI coding agents. Ships ten tools over stdio. All network results land in a local knowledge cache.

Host-LLM synthesis (read me first)

Wigolo has no internal LLM. It returns structured evidence so the calling model (you) writes the final answer. Fold structure into your reply rather than collapsing it away:

• search with format: "highlights" — ML-scored passages + citations. Quote and cite [N].
• research — when MCP sampling is unavailable (common), the output carries a brief with topics, highlights, key_findings. Use it as the scaffold for the report you write.
• find_similar — may return a cold_start string. Pass it to the user; it explains why results came from the web and how to warm the cache.
• extract with mode: "structured" — one call for tables + <dl> definitions + JSON-LD + chart hints + key-value pairs.
• fetch metadata — surfaces og_type, canonical_url, and og_image; use canonical_url to dedupe tracked/canonical URLs.

Quick Setup

Claude Code:

claude mcp add wigolo -- npx wigolo

Cursor / VS Code / any MCP client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wigolo": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["wigolo"]
    }
  }
}

Warmup (recommended, one-time):

npx wigolo warmup          # installs browser engine + bootstraps search engine
npx wigolo warmup --all    # also installs Firefox, WebKit, ML reranker, and embeddings
npx wigolo warmup --force  # wipe search engine state and rebuild

Warmup flags: --force, --all, --reranker, --firefox, --webkit, --embeddings, --no-searxng, --verify.

Tools

fetch

Fetch a single URL and return clean markdown. Use when you already have a specific URL.

Parameters:

• url (string, required)
• render_js: "auto" (default) | "always" | "never"
• use_auth: boolean (default false) — reuses the user's browser session
• max_chars: number
• section: string — return only the content under a heading
• section_index: number (default 0) — which heading match when multiple hit
• screenshot: boolean (default false)
• headers: object
• force_refresh: boolean — bypass cache
• actions: array of {type, selector, text, ms, timeout, direction, amount} — click, type, wait, wait_for, scroll, screenshot. Forces browser rendering when present.

Example:

{ "url": "https://react.dev/reference/react/useState", "section": "Parameters" }

Tip: section is much cheaper than reading the full page. Repeat fetches of the same URL are free from cache unless force_refresh: true.

search

Search the web and return extracted markdown per result. Use when you don't have a URL yet.

Parameters:

• query (string OR string[], required) — array runs variants in parallel and dedupes
• max_results: number (default 5, cap 20)
• include_content: boolean (default true)
• content_max_chars: number (default 30000)
• max_total_chars: number (default 50000)
• time_range: "day" | "week" | "month" | "year"
• include_domains / exclude_domains: string[]
• from_date / to_date: ISO YYYY-MM-DD
• category: "general" | "news" | "code" | "docs" | "papers" | "images"
• language: string
• search_engines: string[] — override engine selection
• format: "full" (default) | "context" (token-budgeted string) | "highlights" (ML-scored passages + citations) | "answer" (synthesized via MCP sampling; falls back to highlights when unsupported) | "stream_answer" (answer + phase progress notifications)
• max_highlights: number (default 10) — cap when format: "highlights"
• force_refresh: boolean

Example:

{ "query": ["react server components patterns", "RSC data fetching", "react server components streaming"], "category": "docs", "include_domains": ["react.dev"], "max_results": 5 }

Tip: keyword queries beat natural-language questions. A 3–5 item query array usually finds more unique sources than one longer query.

crawl

Crawl a site starting from a seed URL.

Parameters:

• url (string, required)
• strategy: "bfs" (default) | "dfs" | "sitemap" | "map" (URL-only discovery, no content)
• max_depth: number (default 2)
• max_pages: number (default 20)
• include_patterns / exclude_patterns: regex string[]
• use_auth: boolean (default false)
• extract_links: boolean (default false) — returns inter-page link graph
• max_total_chars: number (default 100000)

Example:

{ "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/library/", "strategy": "sitemap", "max_pages": 30, "include_patterns": ["^https://docs\\.python\\.org/3/library/asyncio"] }

Tip: strategy: "sitemap" is faster and more complete than BFS on doc sites. strategy: "map" returns URLs only — cheap way to scope before targeted fetches.

cache

Search previously fetched content without hitting the network.

Parameters:

• query: full-text search — supports AND, OR, NOT, "exact phrase"
• url_pattern: glob (e.g. "*react.dev*")
• since: ISO date
• stats: boolean — returns total URLs, size, date range
• clear: boolean — deletes matching entries (requires one of query, url_pattern, since)
• check_changes: boolean — re-fetches matching URLs, reports changed/unchanged with diff summaries

Example:

{ "query": "useState OR useReducer", "url_pattern": "*react.dev*" }

Tip: cache hits are instant and cross-session. Run this before search or fetch when you suspect the content is already on disk.

extract

Structured extraction from URL or raw HTML.

Parameters:

• url OR html (one required; url wins if both provided)
• mode: "metadata" (default) | "selector" | "tables" | "schema" | "structured" (tables + <dl> definitions + JSON-LD + chart hints + microdata/data-attr/grid key-value pairs in one call)
• css_selector: string — required for mode: "selector"
• multiple: boolean (default false) — return all matches, selector mode only
• schema: JSON Schema object with properties — required for mode: "schema"

Example:

{ "url": "https://example.com/product", "mode": "schema", "schema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "price": { "type": "string" }, "name": { "type": "string" }, "sku": { "type": "string" } } } }

Tip: mode: "schema" does heuristic matching over CSS classes, ARIA labels, microdata, and JSON-LD — no LLM call required. mode: "structured" returns every structured pattern on the page (tables, definitions, jsonld, chart_hints, key_value_pairs) in one response — prefer it over chaining multiple extract calls.

find_similar

Find pages related to a URL or a free-text concept.

Parameters:

• url OR concept (one required)
• max_results: number (default 10, cap 50)
• include_domains / exclude_domains: string[]
• include_cache: boolean (default true)
• include_web: boolean (default true)

Example:

{ "url": "https://react.dev/reference/react/useState", "max_results": 8, "include_domains": ["react.dev", "developer.mozilla.org"] }

Tip: uses hybrid 3-way RRF fusion — keyword search + semantic embeddings + live web search. Each result carries match_signals with embedding_rank, fts5_rank, and fused_score. If the cache is empty or embeddings aren't set up, the response includes a cold_start string — pass it to the user to explain why results came from the web.

research

Multi-step research pipeline with decomposition, parallel search, and cited synthesis.

Parameters:

• question (string, required)
• depth: "quick" (~15s, 2 sub-queries, 5–8 sources) | "standard" (~40s, default) | "comprehensive" (~80s, 7 sub-queries, 20–25 sources)
• max_sources: number (cap 50) — overrides depth default
• include_domains / exclude_domains: string[]
• schema: JSON Schema — if present, report is structured to fill these fields
• stream: boolean — emit progress notifications per phase

Example:

{ "question": "How do modern JS bundlers tree-shake ESM vs CJS?", "depth": "standard", "include_domains": ["webpack.js.org", "rollupjs.org", "esbuild.github.io", "vitejs.dev"] }

Tip: research checks cache internally — no need to pre-probe. With MCP sampling, the tool synthesizes the report directly. Without sampling (the common case), the output ships a brief with topics, highlights, and key_findings, plus the raw sources — the host LLM writes the final report from the brief.

agent

Natural-language data gathering. Plans queries and URLs from a prompt, runs them in parallel within budget, optionally applies a schema.

Parameters:

• prompt (string, required)
• urls: string[] — seed URLs to include
• schema: JSON Schema — extract structured fields per page and merge
• max_pages: number (default 10, cap 100)
• max_time_ms: number (default 60000, cap 600000)
• stream: boolean

Example:

{ "prompt": "Compare pricing tiers for Supabase, Firebase, and Clerk", "schema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "provider": { "type": "string" }, "free_tier": { "type": "string" }, "paid_start": { "type": "string" } } }, "max_pages": 12 }

Tip: output includes a steps array showing every action (plan, search, fetch, extract, synthesize) with timings. Use this to debug why an agent run produced a weak result.

diff

Compare two versions of a page. Point it at a live URL and its cached copy, two URLs, or two markdown blobs.

Parameters:

• old (object, required): one of { url, markdown, content_hash }
• new (object, required): one of { url, markdown }
• output: "unified" (default), "hunks", or "summary"
• granularity: "line" (default), "word", or "section"

Example:

{ "old": { "url": "https://docs.example.com/api" }, "new": { "url": "https://docs.example.com/api" }, "output": "hunks", "granularity": "section" }

Tip: same URL on both sides diffs the cached copy against a fresh fetch. Use output: "summary" for counts only.

watch

Monitor a page for changes over time. Lazy execution — checks run when you call check or when an overdue job is picked up during another tool run.

Parameters:

• action (string, required): "create", "list", "check", "pause", "resume", "delete"
• url or urls: single-URL or batch create (mutually exclusive)
• interval_seconds: required for create (min 60)
• selector: create-only CSS selector to scope the diff
• notification: "inline" (default) or an SSRF-guarded webhook URL
• job_id: required for check/pause/resume/delete

Example:

{ "action": "create", "url": "https://nodejs.org/en/blog", "interval_seconds": 21600 }

Tip: webhook destinations are SSRF-guarded — a job cannot be pointed at internal or loopback addresses.

Workflow Patterns

Quick routing:

• Use when search — you need information but don't have a URL.
• Use when fetch — you already have the URL.
• Use when crawl — you need multiple pages from one site.
• Use when cache — you want to check whether something is already on disk.
• Use when extract — you need specific fields, tables, or metadata, not the whole page.
• Use when find_similar — you have a good page/concept and want related content.
• Use when research — a question needs decomposition and multi-source synthesis.
• Use when agent — a natural-language task needs multi-step data gathering.
• Use when diff — you need to see what changed between two versions of a page.
• Use when watch — you want to monitor a page for changes over time.

Cache-first lookup. Before any fetch or search, probe the cache.

cache({ "query": "oauth2 pkce", "url_pattern": "*auth0.com*" })
// empty? fall through to search
search({ "query": "oauth2 pkce flow", "include_domains": ["auth0.com"] })

Fresh content (news, dashboards, changelogs). Bypass cache explicitly.

search({ "query": "node.js 22 release notes", "force_refresh": true, "time_range": "week" })
fetch({ "url": "https://nodejs.org/en/blog", "force_refresh": true })

Scoped documentation research. Crawl the relevant slice, then query cache.

crawl({ "url": "https://docs.astro.build", "strategy": "sitemap", "max_pages": 40 })
cache({ "query": "server islands hydration", "url_pattern": "*docs.astro.build*" })

Broad exploration. Pass a query array; dedup is automatic.

search({ "query": ["rust async runtimes comparison", "tokio vs async-std vs smol", "rust executor benchmarks"], "max_results": 8 })

More like this. Start with a known-good URL, widen via find_similar.

find_similar({ "url": "https://react.dev/reference/react/useMemo", "max_results": 6, "include_domains": ["react.dev"] })

Complex synthesis. One research call replaces 5+ manual search/fetch cycles.

research({ "question": "Tradeoffs of vector DBs for RAG at 100M+ embeddings", "depth": "comprehensive" })

Structured data from multiple sources. Use agent with a schema.

agent({ "prompt": "Find latency and pricing for top 5 edge compute providers", "schema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "provider": {"type":"string"}, "cold_start_ms": {"type":"string"}, "price_per_million": {"type":"string"} } } })

Table extraction. Skip markdown entirely.

extract({ "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages", "mode": "tables" })

One-shot structured brief. Tables + definition lists + JSON-LD + chart hints + key-value pairs in one call.

extract({ "url": "https://example.com/product-page", "mode": "structured" })

Direct quotes with citations. ML-scored passages are ideal for host-LLM synthesis.

search({ "query": "react server components data fetching", "format": "highlights", "max_highlights": 6, "include_domains": ["react.dev", "nextjs.org"] })

Parameter Cheat Sheet

Anti-Patterns

Do not skip the cache. Running search or fetch without probing cache wastes time on content already on disk. research and agent check cache internally; manual search/fetch do not.

Do not send natural-language questions to search. Use keywords. "how do I debounce in React hooks" loses to "react useDebounce hook custom".

Do not retry an identical failing query. Reformulate keywords, swap category, or add include_domains. Same query → same empty result.

Do not use agent or research for one-URL lookups. Use fetch. agent is for multi-source gathering; research is for decomposable questions.

Do not crawl max_pages: 100 without filters. Always add include_patterns to stay in-scope. Unfiltered crawls fetch nav, footer, and sitemap garbage.

Do not fetch whole pages when you need one section. fetch + section reads under one heading only.

Do not set force_refresh: true by default. It defeats the cache. Use it for news, status, changelogs — content that actually churns.

Do not pass a JSON Schema to extract without properties. The handler rejects schemas that lack a properties key.

CLI Commands

wigolo                  # default: start MCP server on stdio
wigolo mcp              # explicit: start MCP server
wigolo warmup [flags]   # install browser engine, bootstrap search engine, optional extras
wigolo serve            # start HTTP daemon on WIGOLO_DAEMON_PORT (default 3333)
wigolo health           # health probe, exits 0 if ok
wigolo doctor           # environment diagnostics
wigolo auth discover    # list CDP sessions (needs WIGOLO_CDP_URL)
wigolo auth status      # show configured auth paths
wigolo plugin add <git-url>    # clone plugin into ~/.wigolo/plugins/
wigolo plugin list             # list installed plugins
wigolo plugin remove <name>    # remove a plugin
wigolo shell [--json]   # interactive REPL against subsystems

Configuration

Top environment variables. All optional — defaults are safe.

Full list: see src/config.ts.

Links

• Repository: https://github.com/KnockOutEZ/wigolo
• npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/wigolo
• License: GNU AGPL-3.0-only — free to use, modify, and self-host; see the root LICENSE

Local-first web intelligence for AI agents — no keys, no cloud, no metered bill.

works with  Claude Code · Cursor · Codex · Gemini CLI · OpenCode · VS Code · Windsurf · Zed · Antigravity and beyond  LangChain · CrewAI · LlamaIndex · Vercel AI SDK · n8n & self-hosted agents · any MCP client · plain REST

Quickstart · Tools · Why wigolo · Sponsors · Benchmark · Docs · Examples · Feedback · FAQ

New features and updates ship steadily. Follow @yourtowhid on X for all of it and new ways to use wigolo, and reach out there for collaborations or feedback · also on LinkedIn

wigolo gives an AI agent one surface for everything web-related: search, fetch, crawl, extract, cache, find-similar, research, and autonomous gather loops. It runs wherever your agent runs — as an MCP server next to your coding agent, as a REST/MCP endpoint on the box where your self-hosted agents live, or embedded through an SDK inside your own app. The core tools need no API keys, nothing it touches leaves ~/.wigolo/, and no bill grows with how much your agent thinks.

Quickstart

npx wigolo init                              # set up the local engine — any system
npx wigolo init --agents=claude-code,cursor  # …or set up + wire your day-to-day agents in one command

Requires Node ≥ 20 and ~1.5 GB of free disk on macOS, Linux, or Windows. Bare init sets up the local engine: it downloads the browser engine and on-device models, runs a health check, and reports each component. Adding --agents wires the named agents in the same run, so a coding agent you use daily is ready in one command.

• Supported agents — --agents takes any of claude-code · cursor · codex · gemini-cli · opencode · vscode · windsurf · zed · antigravity (comma-separated); wigolo writes the MCP config and, where supported, instructions for each.
• Any other setup — any MCP client, agent framework, or self-hosted agent registers npx -y wigolo in its own MCP config. The installation guide has the exact config block for every client, plus Docker, Homebrew, and single-file-binary channels.
• More on the way — the supported list keeps growing, and a PR to add your agent is welcome; see CONTRIBUTING.md.
• Interactive setup — --interactive is a plain-text flow; --wizard is the full terminal TUI.
• Defer downloads — --no-warmup waits until first use. A failed component download never fails setup; init reports what's not ready with the exact fix and still completes.

init is unattended by default, so it's safe in scripts and CI, and any setup problem surfaces right here in the per-component report, before your agent's first call. Search, fetch, crawl, extract, cache, and find-similar work with no API key. Check it's healthy anytime:

npx wigolo doctor

To remove everything cleanly, run npx wigolo config --uninstall --yes. You can also paste the installation guide into any AI assistant and let it do the setup; it's written to be self-contained.

Recommended — a free key for research & agent

Search, fetch, crawl, extract, cache, and find-similar are fully keyless. research, agent, and search format=answer use an LLM to write the synthesized, cited answer. Without one they hand back a raw brief and evidence for your agent to assemble. A free Gemini key turns that into a finished answer:

export WIGOLO_LLM_PROVIDER=gemini
export GEMINI_API_KEY=<free-key>      # grab one at aistudio.google.com/apikey — the free tier is plenty

Any provider works (anthropic · openai · groq), or stay fully local and keyless with WIGOLO_LLM_PROVIDER=ollama (or any OpenAI-compatible URL). Set it in your shell or your agent's MCP env block. Providers, models, and the keyless local-model ladder are in the configuration guide.

What your agent gets back

Every search result is evidence the agent can act on. It carries a verbatim excerpt pinned to its exact position in the source, a citation ID the agent can quote, and a score it can inspect (abridged real shape):

{
  "results": [{
    "title": "Logical replication - PostgreSQL docs",
    "url": "https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/logical-replication.html",
    "excerpt": "Logical replication is a method of replicating data objects…",
    "citation_id": "src-1",
    "source_span": { "start": 1042, "end": 1305 },          // byte-exact provenance
    "evidence_score": { "final": 0.86, "semantic": 0.91, "lexical": 0.78, "engine_consensus": 3 }
  }],
  "citations": [{ "id": "src-1", "url": "…" }],
  "freshness_signal": { "published": "2026-05-12", "confidence": "high" }
}

Weak results get flagged as junk by wigolo's own scorer. Failed engines are reported and stale cache is labeled, so the agent always knows what it's standing on. Full response contracts per tool are in the tools reference.

Tools

Every tool also runs from the terminal (wigolo search "…" --json), from an interactive shell with NDJSON piping (wigolo shell), over REST, and through the SDKs — CLI reference. Per-tool guides with the full parameter set are in docs/tools.md; runnable examples are in examples/.

Why it's different

wigolo isn't a free stand-in for the paid tools — it's built to match them. It's a focused web layer for your agents: an MCP and REST surface they call directly, with the search and extraction quality the paid services charge for. What separates it:

• Built for agents. One MCP call fans out many queries across many engines in parallel, which a serial host tool-loop can't replicate. Every result carries transparent per-result scoring, and output is budget-aware.
• Honest output. Stale cache, failed fetches, degraded backends, and truncation are surfaced in the result. When a bot-protected page can't be read, you get a labeled blocked_by_challenge failure, not a challenge shell returned as content.
• $0 per query, free to re-query. Default search t