brave-search

brave-search is a modern, Linux-first command-line tool maintained by a member of Haltman.io. It queries the Brave Search API and extracts URLs only, producing clean, pipeline-friendly output for cybersecurity workflows.

Typical use cases:

• OSINT URL collection

• Recon pipelines (seed URLs for crawlers/scanners)

• Brand and domain footprint discovery

• Automated search-driven enrichment

  

Installation

Requirements

• Go 1.22+
• Valid Brave Search API key

git clone https://github.com/haltman-io/brave-search.git
cd brave-search
go build -o brave-search ./cmd/brave-search

./brave-search -h

go install github.com/haltman-io/brave-search/cmd/brave-search@latest

brave-search -h

Configuration

API key configuration (required)

brave-search -ak "YOUR_API_KEY" -sq "site:example.com"

.brave-search.yaml

api_keys: []

api_keys:
  - "KEY_1"
  - "KEY_2"

Usage

Basic search

brave-search -sq "site:thc.org" --debug --all

Multiple queries

Comma-separated:

brave-search -sq "site:example.com,site:example.org"

Repeatable flags:

brave-search -sq "site:example.com" -sq "site:example.org"

From file:

brave-search -sqf queries.txt

From stdin (explicit):

cat queries.txt | brave-search --stdin

Pagination

Manual page control:

brave-search -sq "site:example.com" --count 20 --page 0

Auto-pagination (recommended):

brave-search -sq "site:example.com" --all

Output to file (sorted & deduplicated)

brave-search -sq "site:example.com" --all -o urls.txt

• Results are sorted and deduplicated
• One URL per line
• File is overwritten if it exists

Proxy and TLS usage

HTTP proxy + TLS bypass (common with Burp/ZAP):

brave-search -sq "site:example.com" --proxy http://127.0.0.1:8080 -k

SOCKS5 proxy:

brave-search -sq "site:example.com" --proxy socks5://127.0.0.1:9050

Possible Problems / Important Notes

Rate limits

• Default tool limit: 5 requests/second
• Brave API tiers may enforce stricter limits (e.g., 1 rps)

If you see 429 RATE_LIMITED:

brave-search -sq "site:example.com" --rate-limit 1

Increase retry wait time:

brave-search -sq "site:example.com" --retry-wait-time 5s

Retries and failures

• Default retries: 3
• If retries are exhausted, the tool exits with a fatal error (intentional to avoid silent data loss)

STDIN behavior

• Reading from stdin is disabled by default
• You must explicitly enable it with --stdin

TLS bypass warning

External References

• Brave Search API documentation
• GitHub: haltman-io/brave-search