Brave Search API key wired literally into the settings file and committed.
Operator decision, 2026-09-18, made explicitly: this is a free-tier key on a
rate-limited service of marginal value — "if the service is useless, so is the
key" — so it does not justify the machinery that keeping it out of git would
cost. The key remains in the vault at nh3-docker/searxng-brave-api-key as
well. This is a scoped judgement about one low-value credential and not a
change to the no-secrets-in-git rule for anything else.
⚠ It cannot be un-committed. Rotation means issuing a new key at Brave and
replacing the line; never a history rewrite, since the repo is shared and
other sessions commit to it.
There is no supported alternative in this build. An earlier attempt used
`api_key: !ENV SEARXNG_BRAVE_API_KEY`, which crash-looped the container ten
times with search down fleet-wide: the settings loader has no !ENV YAML
constructor, reads only SEARXNG_SETTINGS_PATH from the environment, and the
entrypoint substitutes only `ultrasecretkey` at template-creation time. The
variable reaches the container and is never read. Literal or nothing.
Key verified against Brave's API directly before wiring, and verified in place
after: three consecutive queries returned 55-63 results from six engines with
braveapi contributing 20 each time, while google cse and marginalia remain
quota-suspended. General web engines are now seven, up from one this morning.
vh
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