Get the instant answer for a query
DuckDuckGo’s instant answer for a query: a topic summary with its source and URL (usually Wikipedia), an image, a definition or direct answer where DuckDuckGo has one, infobox fact rows such as the developer or first release date, the official website, and related topics. For an ambiguous term, type is disambiguation and results lists the meanings, each with the section it belongs to in group. A query DuckDuckGo has no instant answer for is a 200 with found: false, not an error. Billing: one request.
/instant-answer Answers https://api.fetchlayer.dev/duckduckgo/instant-answer Headers
Authorization string required Bearer token — your FetchLayer API key.
Parameters
query string required The search query, as you would type it (1–500 characters).
format string optional json or markdown. (default: json)
timeoutMs number optional Time limit for each page read, in milliseconds (1000–120000).
Response Fields
instant-answer
Get the instant answer for a query
resultType string search, rank-check, instant-answer, suggestions, news, videos or images.
requestedUrl string The DuckDuckGo page this result corresponds to.
notes string[] Caveats about this particular result — a list that may be incomplete, a depth DuckDuckGo could not reach, a later page that could not be read. Empty when there are none. Read it on every call.
transport string The source this data came from. Always "duckduckgo".
scrapedAt string ISO 8601 timestamp of when the data was collected.
query string The query that was run.
found boolean Whether DuckDuckGo has an instant answer for the query.
type string article, disambiguation, category, exclusive, name, or null.
heading string The topic heading, or null.
abstract string The topic summary, or null.
abstractSource string Where the summary comes from, e.g. "Wikipedia".
abstractUrl string The source page for the summary.
imageUrl string An image for the topic, or null.
answer string A direct answer (a calculation, a conversion), or null.
answerType string What kind of answer it is, or null.
definition string A dictionary definition, or null. definitionSource and definitionUrl say where it is from.
entity string What the topic is, e.g. "programming language", or null.
officialWebsite string The topic’s official website, or null.
infobox object[] Fact rows, each { label, value }.
results object[] Primary links — or, on a disambiguation, the meanings — each { text, url, iconUrl, group }.
relatedTopics object[] Related topics, each { text, url, iconUrl, group }. group names the section on a disambiguation.
redirect string The URL DuckDuckGo redirects the query to, when it does, or null.
pagesScraped number Always 1.
Request
curl -X POST "https://api.fetchlayer.dev/duckduckgo/instant-answer" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ss-your-key" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"query":"python programming language"}'Response
{
"resultType": "instant-answer",
"requestedUrl": "https://duckduckgo.com/?q=python+programming+language",
"scrapedAt": "2026-09-15T19:47:52.225Z",
"transport": "duckduckgo",
"notes": [],
"query": "python programming language",
"found": true,
"type": "article",
"heading": "Python (programming language)",
"abstract": "Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language that emphasizes code readability, simplicity, and ease-of-writing with the use of significant indentation, an extensive standard library, and garbage collection. Python supports multiple programming paradigms but with an emphasis on object-oriented programming and dynamic typing.",
"abstractSource": "Wikipedia",
"abstractUrl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)",
"imageUrl": "https://duckduckgo.com/i/4d83768732377cf3.png",
"answer": null,
"answerType": null,
"definition": null,
"definitionSource": null,
"definitionUrl": null,
"entity": "programming language",
"officialWebsite": "https://www.python.org/",
"infobox": [
{
"label": "Designed by",
"value": "Guido van Rossum"
},
{
"label": "Developer",
"value": "Python Software Foundation"
},
{
"label": "First appeared",
"value": "February 20, 1991"
}
],
"results": [
{
"text": "Official site",
"url": "https://www.python.org/",
"iconUrl": "https://duckduckgo.com/i/python.org.ico",
"group": null
}
],
"relatedTopics": [
{
"text": "Pydoc - Pydoc is the standard documentation module for the programming language Python.",
"url": "https://duckduckgo.com/Pydoc",
"iconUrl": null,
"group": null
},
{
"text": "NumPy - NumPy is a library for the Python programming language, adding support for large, multi-dimensional arrays and matrices.",
"url": "https://duckduckgo.com/NumPy",
"iconUrl": null,
"group": null
}
],
"redirect": null,
"pagesScraped": 1
}