SearchHub
A local search engine for your browser bookmarks. Import bookmarks from Firefox, Zen, Chrome, or Chromium, search them with full-text queries, and optionally forward searches to crates.io (via its public JSON API). Content is automatically tagged via local ONNX embeddings.
Install
Prerequisites: Rust (install via rustup).
git clone https://github.com/your/repo.git
cd search_hub
cargo install --path .
This installs the search_hub binary to ~/.cargo/bin/search_hub.
To update later, pull the latest code and reinstall.
First steps
# Import bookmarks from Firefox (auto-discovers your profile)
search_hub import firefox
# Import from Chrome
search_hub import chrome
# Start the web UI
search_hub serve
Open http://127.0.0.1:8080 in your browser. You can now search your bookmarks.
Search queries are also forwarded to crates.io via its public JSON API. Works as a custom search provider in Firefox/Zen via the OpenSearch protocol (your browser should auto-discover it at /opensearch.xml).
CLI reference
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
search_hub serve | Start web UI on port 8080 |
search_hub serve --port 3000 | Start on a custom port |
search_hub import firefox | Import bookmarks from Firefox |
search_hub import chrome | Import from Chrome/Chromium |
search_hub import zen | Import from Zen Browser |
search_hub search "query" | Search bookmarks from the terminal |
search_hub list | List all bookmarks |
search_hub insert "Title" https://..." | Add a bookmark (fetches content, auto-tags) |
search_hub remove --id 1 | Delete a bookmark by ID |
search_hub retag --all | Re-run auto-tagging on all bookmarks |
search_hub init-config | Create a default config file at ~/.config/search_hub/config.toml |
All commands use ~/.local/share/search_hub/bookmarks.db by default. Override with --db-path or set db_path in the config file.
The first time you use a search or insert command, SearchHub downloads an ONNX embedding model to .fastembed_cache/ in the project directory (about 30 MB).
Configuration
Run search_hub init-config to create ~/.config/search_hub/config.toml with all available options commented out. Or create it manually:
# Bookmark database path (default: platform data directory)
# db_path = "/home/you/.local/share/search_hub/bookmarks.db"
# Custom tags override the built-in defaults
# [[tags]]
# name = "my-custom-tag"
# examples = ["example text one", "example text two"]
# Which external search engines to use (default: ["crates.io"])
# enabled_engines = ["crates.io"]
# Minimum confidence for auto-tagging (0.0 to 1.0, default: 0.6)
# tagging_threshold = 0.6
# Hosts to skip when fetching content for bookmarking (default: local addresses)
# exclude_urls = ["localhost", "127.0.0.1", "::1"]
# Per-engine configuration (optional)
# [engines.searxng]
# instance = "https://search.kael.ink"
# Best: use an existing public instance (see https://searx.space).
# Also possible: run your own with Docker:
# docker run -d --name searxng -p 8888:8080 searxng/searxng
Run the web server as a systemd user service
Keeps the web UI running in the background, starts automatically on login.
cp contrib/search-hub-web.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now search-hub-web.service
Check status with systemctl --user status search-hub-web. View logs with journalctl --user -u search-hub-web -f.
Auto-import with systemd (Zen Browser)
cp contrib/search-hub-import.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
cp contrib/search-hub-import.timer ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now search-hub-import.timer
This imports bookmarks from Zen Browser daily.