Web search

Search the web with keyword triggers. Sevak comes with Google, YouTube and GitHub pre-configured. Enter opens the search results in your browser.

How to use it

Type a keyword followed by a space and your search terms:

Input	Keyword	Search provider	What Enter does
g rust traits	g	Google	Open google.com/search?q=rust+traits
yt keyboard shortcuts	yt	YouTube	Open youtube.com results
gh sevak launcher	gh	GitHub	Open github.com/search results

Press Tab on a bare keyword (g, yt, gh) to complete it with a space, ready for search terms.

The default fallback behavior: when nothing else matches, Sevak searches with the configured fallback engine (by default, Google). You can disable this by setting [search] fallback_web_search = "".

Actions

Key(s)	Action
Enter	Open the search results
Shift+Enter	Copy the search URL to your clipboard

Use Ctrl+K to see all available actions.

Adding custom search engines

Edit config.toml to add, remove, or modify web search engines:

[[web_search]]
keyword = "g"
name = "Google"
url = "https://www.google.com/search?q={query}"

[[web_search]]
keyword = "yt"
name = "YouTube"
url = "https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query={query}"

[[web_search]]
keyword = "gh"
name = "GitHub"
url = "https://github.com/search?q={query}"

To add a new engine: copy one block and change the keyword, name, and url. The {query} placeholder gets replaced with your search terms (percent-encoded).

To remove an engine: delete its entire [[web_search]] block.

To change the default: define [[web_search]] entries in the order they should appear as fallbacks. The first one is used when nothing else matches.

Finding URL templates

Most search engines use ?q= or ?query=. Navigate to the search engine's homepage (e.g., google.com), search for something, and look at the resulting URL. Replace the search term with {query}. Examples:

• Google: https://www.google.com/search?q={query}
• DuckDuckGo: https://duckduckgo.com/?q={query}
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search={query}
• Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?search={query}
• Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/search?q={query}
• npm packages: https://www.npmjs.com/search?q={query}
• Wikipedia (full-text): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?fulltext=Search&search={query}

How search routing works

flowchart TD
    A["Input: 'g rust traits'"] --> B["Split on whitespace"]
    B --> C["First word = 'g'"]
    C --> D{"Is 'g' a keyword<br/>of any plugin?"}
    D -->|Yes| E["Route to that<br/>plugin only"]
    D -->|No| F["Route to all<br/>global plugins"]
    E --> G["Plugin returns<br/>search result"]
    G --> H["Show result"]

Keyword-triggered web searches are always returned, never down-weighted. When you type g with no terms, the engine shows a "Search Google" hint.

Options

Setting	Default	What it does	Config section
Search engines	g, yt, gh	Keywords, names and URL templates for web search	[[web_search]]
Fallback	g	Web engine queried when nothing else matches (empty to disable)	[search] fallback_web_search

Tips and troubleshooting

Unicode in search terms: Sevak automatically encodes search terms for URLs (spaces become %20, accented characters become UTF-8 bytes, etc.). Type naturally.

Special characters: Symbols like &, #, @ are safe to type in search terms and will be encoded correctly.

Multiple fallback options: To offer several fallback engines in order, use a list:

[search]
fallback_web_search = ["g", "yt", "gh"]

If nothing matches, Sevak tries Google first, then YouTube, then GitHub, in order, returning the first one that gives results.

No search keyword: You can temporarily disable all web search by setting disabled = ["web"] in [plugins], but you won't have a fallback for unmatched queries.