CLI reference

Complete command and option reference for Kestrel Search.

CLI reference

Search command

kestrelsearch search [OPTIONS] [QUERY]

Supply at least one query, either as the positional QUERY or with one or more -q, --query options. Both forms can be combined.

Option	Default	Description
-q, --query QUERY	—	Add a query. Repeat as needed; the positional query is optional when this is used.
-e, --engine ENGINE	duckduckgo	Choose duckduckgo, bing, or yahoo. Repeat for multiple engines.
--mode MODE	fallback	Use fallback or fanout.
--search-concurrency N	5	Maximum concurrent search-provider requests.
-k, --top-k N	5	Number of final results.
--fetch-candidates N	3 × top-k	Maximum pages fetched before ranking.
--fetch, --no-fetch	fetch	Enable or disable page retrieval.
--rank, --no-rank	rank	Enable or disable BM25 re-ranking. Requires fetching.
--region CODE	all regions	Provider region such as us-en or uk-en.
--time-filter VALUE	any	Use any, d, w, m, or y. Bing currently ignores this option.
--content-limit CHARS	2000	Maximum extracted characters per page.
--max-response-bytes BYTES	2000000	Maximum accepted response body per page.
--timeout SECS	10	Per-page fetch timeout.
--concurrency N	5	Maximum concurrent page downloads.
--parse-concurrency N	2	Maximum concurrent HTML parsing jobs.
--output FORMAT	text	Return text or json.
-h, --help	—	Show command help.

Skill commands

Install the generated agent skill:

kestrelsearch skill install [OPTIONS]

Option	Description
--agent AGENT	Choose claude, vscode, codex, all, or legacy both.
--scope SCOPE	Choose project or global.
--force	Replace an existing SKILL.md without prompting.

Remove recorded skill installations interactively:

kestrelsearch skill uninstall

Run kestrelsearch --help or kestrelsearch search --help to check the reference for your installed version.