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Online Search

Khoj will research on the internet to ground its responses, when it determines that it would need fresh information outside its existing knowledge to answer the query. It will always show any online references it used to respond to your requests.

By default, Khoj will try to infer which information sources, it needs to read to answer your question. This can include reading your documents or researching information online. You can also explicitly trigger an online search by adding the /online prefix to your chat query.

Example queries that should trigger an online search:

Try it out yourself! https://app.khoj.dev

Self-Hosting​

Online search can work even with self-hosting! You have a few options:

  • If you're using Docker, online search should work out of the box with searxng using our standard docker-compose.yml.
  • To get production-grade, fast online search, set the SERPER_DEV_API_KEY environment variable to your Serper.dev API key. These search results include additional context like answer box, knowledge graph etc.
  • To use open, self-hostable search provider, set the FIRECRAWL_API_KEY environment variable to your Firecrawl API key. These search results do not scrape social media results.
  • To use Exa search provider, set the EXA_API_KEY environment variable to your Exa API key.

Webpage Reading​

Out of the box, you don't have to do anything to enable webpage reading. Khoj will automatically read webpages by using the requests library. To get faster, more readable webpages for Khoj, you can use the following options:

  • For open, self-hostable webpage reader, you can use Firecrawl. Create a new Webscraper. Set your Firecrawl API key to the Api Key field, and set the type to Firecrawl.
  • For advanced webpage reading, you can use Olostep. This can read a wider variety of webpages. Create a new Webscraper. Set your Olostep API key to the Api Key field, and set the type to Olostep.
  • For fast webpage reading, you can use Exa. Create a new Webscraper. Set your Exa API key to the Api Key field, and set the type to Exa.