search_engines parameter declared but never consumed (CLI --search-engines and MCP search_engines both ignored)

[zhibuli290]

Summary

The search_engines parameter (CLI --search-engines and MCP search_engines) is declared but never consumed — passing it has no effect on which engines run.

Repro

CLI (wigolo 0.2.1, npm latest):

wigolo search "gold price" --search-engines=duckduckgo,wikipedia
# Search: "gold price" (9 results, 9526ms, engines: bing)   ← bing still used, flag ignored

MCP (same version, via search_engines: ["duckduckgo", "wikipedia"]):

"engines_used": ["bing"]   ← parameter ignored

Also tried --search-engines=duckduckgo (single value) — same result.

Source evidence (current main branch)

• src/server/tool-schemas.ts:144 — parameter declared in the MCP schema:
  search_engines: { type: 'array', items: { type: 'string' }, description: 'Override engine selection' }
• Help text advertises it: --search-engines=a,b Override engine selection
• Zero consumers — grep -rn "search_engines|searchEngines" src/ shows only the schema declaration and internal engine-list variables (src/cli/shell.ts, src/daemon/rest/dispatch.ts). Nothing reads the parameter and passes it to handleSearch.
• Engine selection is instead hard-coded in src/search/core/core-provider.ts (intent/vertical auto-dispatch: bing, duckduckgo, wikipedia, marginalia, mojeek, ...). src/cli/tool-run.ts seeds [new DuckDuckGoEngine(), new BingEngine()] directly for headless runs.

Why it matters

Users cannot exclude specific engines. Concrete case: the Bing engine returns noisy dictionary/currency/visa results for ambiguous queries (e.g. "US ISM manufacturing PMI" — the "US" token is interpreted as USD/visa; verified via direct proxied request to bing.com, so it's Bing's semantics, not a network issue). The only workaround today is post-hoc: detect the noise and re-search elsewhere.

Expected behavior

Either:

1. Make the parameter actually work — pass the engine allowlist through to the core orchestrator (override the vertical auto-dispatch), or
2. Remove it from the help text and MCP schema until implemented.

Environment

• wigolo 0.2.1 (npm latest, 2026-07-19); also present on current main (clone date 2026-08-14)
• Windows 11

[Frankie-Xu]

I'll take this. The CLI/MCP/REST surfaces already accepted search_engines, but core auto-dispatch ignored it.

#363 wires the allowlist through the core orchestrator so --search-engines=duckduckgo,wikipedia actually overrides engine selection instead of still running Bing.

[KnockOutEZ]

Hi @zhibuli290 — thank you for taking the time to open this, and sorry for the slow response.

I've been heads-down building some pretty big features and improvements for wigolo, and as a solo dev, shipping that while also triaging and maintaining every issue and PR has been genuinely hard. This isn't forgotten — it just hasn't had the attention it deserves yet.

I'd really appreciate your patience here. I'm going to go through the open issues and PRs properly over the next few weeks (sooner if I can free up), and I'll follow up right here.

In the meantime, the wigolo Discord is open if you'd like to follow what's being built, ask questions, or nudge me directly: https://discord.gg/BkUUgz2bNF

Thanks again for raising this, and for understanding — it genuinely means a lot. 🙏