GoBar

Keyword-based navigation bar in front of a search engine. Register it as a browser search engine, then type either:

Input	Behavior
go <keyword>	302 redirect to the matching entry in hosts.yaml
go (unknown/bare)	Render the keyword menu
anything else	302 redirect to the configured search engine with ?q=<query>

Routes

Route	Purpose
/ and /search	Main entry: ?q=<query> dispatches as above
/go/<keyword>	Direct keyword redirect (used by the menu links)
/help	Instructions to add GoBar as a browser search engine
/opensearch.xml	OpenSearch description so Firefox/Chrome can auto-add the engine

Configuration

Everything lives in hosts.yaml; the file is hot-reloaded on change (mtime check on every query), so edits take effect without a restart.

# Search engine used for non-`go` queries.
search_url: "http://search.example-domain/search"

infra:
  router: "https://router.example-domain"

media:
  jellyfin: "http://10.10.1.10:8096"

• Categories (top-level mappings) group keywords in the menu page.
• A flat keyword: URL mapping at the top level also works; those entries are grouped under a trailing other category.
• search_url is reserved: it configures the search engine and never appears as a keyword.
• The GOBAR_SEARCH_URL environment variable overrides the YAML value.

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Purpose
GOBAR_HOSTS_FILE	./hosts.yaml	Path to the hosts file
GOBAR_SEARCH_URL	(unset)	Overrides search_url from hosts.yaml
GOBAR_HOST	0.0.0.0	Bind address
GOBAR_PORT	5000	Bind port

Running

Docker

docker compose up -d --build

The compose file maps host port 5055 (override with GOBAR_PORT) and bind-mounts hosts.yaml read-only so edits hot-reload inside the container. Uncomment the environment: block in docker-compose.yml only if you need to override search_url outside the YAML.

Bare Python

pip install -r requirements.txt   # flask, pyyaml
python app.py

Layout

app.py               Flask app: routing, hosts.yaml loading/hot-reload
hosts.yaml           Search engine + category/keyword/URL mappings
templates/           base.html, keyword_list.html, help.html, opensearch.xml
static/style.css     Menu/help styling
Dockerfile           python:3.13-slim image
docker-compose.yml   Single-service deployment

Browser setup

Open /help on a running instance: it shows the exact URL to register. Once registered with shortcut go (or as the default engine), the address bar accepts go x, go y, or any plain search.