Bridge Search 🌉

The Problem

The OS boundary is a massive bottleneck. When AI agents (like OpenClaw, Cursor, or Claude) try to search Windows files (/mnt/c etc.) from inside WSL2 using standard Linux commands, the results are disastrous. The search takes forever, the agent times out, loses its context window, or simply hallucinates file paths to move on.

The Solution

Bridge Search bypasses the file system bottleneck entirely. It uses Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools to connect your AI directly to the native, hyper-optimised search engines built for Windows.

It handles all the messy cross-OS path translations automatically, giving your agent two immediate superpowers:

• ⚡ Voidtools Everything: Instant, millisecond file and folder lookups.
• 🔎 AnyTXT: Lightning-fast full-text search across documents, code, and PDFs.

Stop letting your AI waste tokens and time on brute-force scanning.

Tip

This skill is identified as windows-search for agent discovery. The underlying package is bridge_search and the MCP server ID remains bridge-search.

⚡ Quick Start

1. Prerequisites (Windows)

To get blazing-fast search speeds, you need the underlying Windows indexers installed and running. (Defaults assume both are available):

• Voidtools Everything: Install the main app and ensure the background service is running. es.exe is not always bundled with the GUI installer—download the Everything Command Line Interface (CLI) from the Voidtools downloads page (separate package), then put es.exe on Windows PATH or under C:\Program Files\Everything\.
• AnyTXT Searcher: Install it, open the app, then go to Tool → HTTP Search Service and enable it.

(Note: If you only want to use one of these, or just want to use WSL native search, Bridge Search is fully configurable. See Advanced Configuration below).

2. Automated Setup (via AI Agent)

Human users can copy and paste this exact prompt to their AI agent to automate the setup:

"I need you to search my Windows files efficiently. Please navigate to your designated skills directory, clone https://github.com/Sarakael78/Bridge-Search. If the pulled directory is not already named windows-search, rename it to windows-search immediately for discovery. Read README.md and SKILL.md in the windows-search folder, then run ./install.sh from the folder root. If ./install.sh stops for a sudo password, halt and ask me to run it manually. Once installed, explicitly ensure the windows-search skill is activated in your environment (for OpenClaw, verify alsoAllow includes bridge-search and run openclaw gateway restart). Use the bridge-search MCP tools for all file lookups going forward, obeying the guardrails in SKILL.md."

3. Manual Installation (WSL2)

Open your WSL2 terminal and run:

# Clone into 'windows-search' directory for agent discovery
git clone https://github.com/Sarakael78/Bridge-Search.git windows-search
cd windows-search
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

The clone directory name must be windows-search for the agent to correctly identify the skill; however, the internal MCP server name used in clients remains bridge-search.

(Note: install.sh is a bootstrap script. On Debian/Ubuntu-based WSL, it will prompt for sudo to install missing python3, pip, and venv via apt, then run the Python setup. On Fedora/RHEL and other non-apt distros, install those packages with your package manager, then run ./install.sh—it will skip apt and run the Python setup only.)

install.sh forwards extra flags to scripts/setup_skill.py and defaults to --venv (for example: ./install.sh --skip-checks or ./install.sh --dev).

4. MCP client (mcporter) on WSL

The bridge exposes MCP over stdio. setup_skill.py can register it; otherwise you need mcporter (or another MCP host that launches scripts/server.py, or python3 -m bridge_search when the bridge_search package is on PYTHONPATH / installed editable from this repo). Install Node.js, then:

npm install -g @steipete/mcporter

Manual registration is documented under Manual MCP Registration below.

🤖 For AI Agents (OpenClaw, Claude, Cursor)

If you are an AI assistant reading this, Bridge Search provides specialised MCP tools for Windows/WSL file discovery and file operations. Use them instead of shell-searching /mnt/c and other Windows mounts.

SKILL.md is the authoritative operational contract for agents. It intentionally owns:

• guardrails and the Absolute Zero rule
• tool choice and search order
• path policy and is_confirmed semantics
• integrations with other skills

Use README.md for installation, troubleshooting, configuration, and security. That split is deliberate so the agent behavior lives in one place instead of drifting across two docs.

🏗️ Architecture Flow

sequenceDiagram
    participant User
    participant Agent as AI Agent (OpenClaw)
    participant MCP as Bridge Search MCP Server (WSL)
    participant Win as Windows Host

    User->>Agent: "Find the project specification on Windows"
    Agent->>MCP: Call tool: `locate_file_or_folder`
    MCP->>Win: Query Voidtools Everything (es.exe) via OS bridge
    Win-->>MCP: Returns `C:\Users\User\spec.pdf`
    MCP->>MCP: Translates to `/mnt/c/Users/User/spec.pdf` (wslpath)
    MCP-->>Agent: Returns safe, mapped WSL path
    Agent-->>User: "Found it at /mnt/c/Users/User/spec.pdf"

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🛠️ Provided MCP Tools

Bridge Search equips your AI with the following capabilities:

• locate_file_or_folder: Instantly finds files by name. Uses es.exe on Windows (target_env=windows). Use everywhere to combine with WSL locate (daily-refreshed DB, non-blocking refresh) and optional WSL find under $HOME.
• locate_content_inside_files: Instantly searches inside documents (PDFs, Word, text). Uses AnyTXT's HTTP API on Windows and grep when targeting WSL paths. Includes automatic host-IP discovery for WSL2.
• map_directory: Generates hierarchical, paginated directory maps to understand project structures.
• get_health: Diagnoses the status of all search backends (Everything, AnyTXT, WSL locate/find/grep) and connectivity.
• manage_file: Safely read, write, move, or delete files across the OS boundary with automatic path translation and policy checks.

manage_file safety rules

manage_file is stricter than a raw shell wrapper:

• write and delete still require is_confirmed=True when confirmation gates are enabled
• write now defaults to replace, while append requires write_mode="append"
• copy and move will not overwrite an existing destination unless overwrite=True
• copy and move refuse source and destination paths that resolve to the same location
• copy and move refuse to place a directory inside itself
• delete refuses filesystem root and the current user's home directory
• write returns a structured destination_parent_missing error if the parent directory does not exist
• reads try several common text encodings (utf-8, utf-16, cp1252) before giving up
• write/copy/move/mkdir are blocked on symlink paths, while delete removes the symlink itself rather than following it
• file operations use Python filesystem APIs instead of shelling out to cp, mv, or rm -rf
• write with empty or missing content still runs (replace creates/truncates; append is a no-op) but returns warning empty_content_write
• deleting a directory with more than limits.max_delete_entries top-level entries proceeds when is_confirmed=True but includes warning large_directory_delete

Unified response contract

All five tools return the same top-level payload shape:

• success
• results
• errors
• warnings
• meta

Errors and warnings include a stable machine-readable code, so callers do not need to parse English prose.

Important:

• a zero-hit search is a valid outcome, so it returns success: true with results: []
• when multiple backends are queried, success may still be true if at least one backend returns results; always inspect errors and warnings for partial failures
• when both errors and results are non-empty, meta.degraded is true so partial success is explicit
• when Windows paths come back from Everything or AnyTXT, Bridge Search translates them to WSL paths when possible and preserves the original as raw_path
• manage_file(read) returns decoded text in results[0].content and may include results[0].encoding

Concrete response examples

Successful filename search

{
  "success": true,
  "results": [
    {
      "type": "search_hit",
      "path": "/mnt/c/Users/david/Documents/spec.pdf",
      "raw_path": "C:\\Users\\david\\Documents\\spec.pdf",
      "source": "windows-everything"
    }
  ],
  "errors": [],
  "warnings": [],
  "meta": {
    "total_found": 1
  }
}

Zero-hit search

{
  "success": true,
  "results": [],
  "errors": [],
  "warnings": [],
  "meta": {
    "total_found": 0
  }
}

Backend error response

{
  "success": false,
  "results": [],
  "errors": [
    {
      "code": "backend_unavailable",
      "message": "es.exe not found. Check Everything installation or Windows PATH.",
      "source": "windows-everything"
    }
  ],
  "warnings": [],
  "meta": {}
}

Blocked manage_file mutation

{
  "success": false,
  "results": [],
  "errors": [
    {
      "code": "write_confirmation_required",
      "message": "WRITE BLOCKED. Pass is_confirmed=True after reviewing the target path.",
      "path": "/mnt/c/Users/david/Documents/note.txt"
    }
  ],
  "warnings": [],
  "meta": {
    "action": "write"
  }
}

Tool reference

• get_health() – No parameters; reports whether Everything, AnyTXT, and the WSL helpers can be reached.
• locate_file_or_folder(query, target_env="windows", exact_match=False, limit=100, offset=0) – Filename search.
  • query must be non-empty; blank or whitespace-only input returns query_required.
  • target_env = windows, wsl, or everywhere. Windows results call Everything, WSL results use locate (daily-refreshed DB with background refresh) and optional find.
  • meta.wsl_locate_refresh_scheduled is always present when WSL locate is enabled: false by default, true when stale data triggers a background refresh.
  • Everything native paging (-viewport-offset, -viewport-count) is used only for target_env="windows" so merged everywhere paging stays consistent.
  • limit/offset obey limits.max_limit (default 500) and limits.max_offset (default 50 000). Paginated responses may set meta.total_found_is_lower_bound when paging is capped.
  • Results include both a normalized WSL path and the original raw_path for Windows hits.
• locate_content_inside_files(query, target_env="everywhere", wsl_search_path="", limit=50, offset=0) – AnyTXT (windows) plus grep (wsl).
  • query must be non-empty; blank or whitespace-only input returns query_required.
  • wsl_search_path defaults to $HOME; use allow_grep_from_filesystem_root or BRIDGE_SEARCH_ALLOW_ROOT_GREP=1 to allow /.
  • WSL grep returns at most 2 matching lines per file (-m 2) to keep results concise and fast; use manage_file(read) to see full file contents.
  • Responses may include line_number (WSL) or snippet/raw_path for AnyTXT.
• map_directory(target_path, max_depth=2, include_extensions=None, exclude_hidden=True, target_env="auto", limit=100, offset=0) – Paginated directory map.
  • Depth capped by limits.max_depth, and listings stop after limits.max_catalog_lines entries to avoid blowing the cache.
• manage_file(action, source_path, destination_path=None, content=None, target_env="wsl", overwrite=False, is_confirmed=False, write_mode="replace") – Guarded reads/writes.
  • action = read|write|copy|move|delete|mkdir.
  • is_confirmed=True is required for mutations when confirmations are enabled.
  • write_mode defaults to replace; pass append when you explicitly want append semantics.

🚑 Troubleshooting

• AnyTXT connection errors/timeouts: Bridge Search includes automatic WSL2 host discovery. It tries 127.0.0.1 and then your host IP from /etc/resolv.conf. Use the get_health tool to diagnose exactly which URL failed. Ensure AnyTXT Searcher → Tool → HTTP Search Service is enabled on port 9921.
• get_health reports AnyTXT failures: Health probes hit the same runtime /search endpoint (with ?q=healthcheck) for configured and fallback URLs; a working base UI URL alone is not sufficient.
• Everything returns "es.exe not found": Install the Everything CLI from Voidtools downloads if you only installed the GUI. Ensure the background service is running and es.exe is on Windows PATH (or under C:\Program Files\Everything\). Run get_health to confirm detection.
• mcporter: command not found: Node.js or mcporter is missing. Install via npm: npm install -g @steipete/mcporter.
• Agent ignores tools: If the agent drops context and tries to use find /mnt/c/, remind it: "Do not use shell commands to search. Use your bridge-search MCP tools."

⚙️ Advanced Configuration & Backends

You do not have to use both Everything and AnyTXT. Set backends in config/bridge-search.config.json (copy from config/bridge-search.config.example.json) or use per-process environment variables (e.g., BRIDGE_SEARCH_ENABLE_EVERYTHING=1).

We provide templates in the config/ directory for common setups:

• bridge-search.config.everything-only.example.json — Windows filename search only.
• bridge-search.config.anytxt-only.example.json — Windows content search only.
• bridge-search.config.everything-and-anytxt.example.json — Both Windows indexers enabled.
• bridge-search.config.relaxed.json — A deliberately relaxed profile.

Configuration reference

Config structure

• service.anytxt_url (default http://127.0.0.1:9921/search). Used by AnyTXT HTTP tool calls.
• security.path_denylist (default, minimal, custom, none) controls the denylist applied to search paths and file operations.
• security.custom_restricted_prefixes + security.allowed_prefixes override the deny/allow lists you see in path_policy.py. Use absolute WSL paths or Windows-style C:\... paths; Windows entries are normalized into WSL form before policy checks.
• security.allow_grep_from_filesystem_root & security.allow_wsl_locator_from_filesystem_root gate root-level scans.
• security.require_confirm_for_writes / security.require_confirm_for_deletes keep manage_file mutations gated by is_confirmed.
• limits.* values tune caps:
  • max_limit, max_offset control the MCP pagination parameters.
  • max_depth and max_catalog_lines limit map_directory.
  • max_locator_results bounds locate_* backends.
  • anytxt_max_response_bytes caps AnyTXT payloads.
  • command_timeout_seconds is the default timeout for es.exe, grep, wslpath, and HTTP calls.
  • max_read_bytes is the soft limit for manage_file(read) before a truncation warning (default 1 048 576 bytes).
  • max_delete_entries is the top-level entry count above which manage_file(delete) emits a warning about large directory removal (default 1000).
• backends.everything, .anytxt, .wsl_locate, .wsl_find, and .wsl_grep enable or disable each search backend.
• WSL locate database path defaults to ~/.cache/bridge-search/wsl-locate.db and refreshes at most once every 24 hours via a non-blocking background job; stale cache rows can still be returned immediately while refresh runs.

Environment overrides

• BRIDGE_SEARCH_CONFIG — absolute path to a different config file.
• BRIDGE_SEARCH_ANYTXT_URL — override the AnyTXT HTTP endpoint (normalized to /search).
• BRIDGE_SEARCH_CMD_TIMEOUT_SECONDS — overrides limits.command_timeout_seconds.
• BRIDGE_SEARCH_ALLOWED_PREFIXES — allowlist applied to both searches and file ops. The parser accepts : or ;; prefer ; when any Windows-style C:\... prefix is present.
• BRIDGE_SEARCH_ENABLE_EVERYTHING, BRIDGE_SEARCH_ENABLE_ANYTXT, BRIDGE_SEARCH_ENABLE_WSL_LOCATE, BRIDGE_SEARCH_ENABLE_WSL_FIND, BRIDGE_SEARCH_ENABLE_WSL_GREP — toggle each backend on/off.
• BRIDGE_SEARCH_LOCATE_DB_PATH — optional override for the WSL locate database file path.
• BRIDGE_SEARCH_ALLOW_ROOT_GREP=1 or config allow_grep_from_filesystem_root lets WSL grep run from /.
• BRIDGE_SEARCH_ALLOW_ROOT_LOCATOR=1 or allow_wsl_locator_from_filesystem_root lets WSL locate/find index and search from /.

Example configs now also expose:

• limits.command_timeout_seconds for subprocess and HTTP timeout tuning
• a _write_note reminder that manage_file(write) defaults to replace, while append requires write_mode="append" per call

AnyTXT HTTP URL: By default, the bridge uses http://127.0.0.1:9921/search. Update this via the --anytxt-url flag during setup, by editing config/bridge-search.config.json (service.anytxt_url), or by setting BRIDGE_SEARCH_ANYTXT_URL.

Installer note: setup_skill.py persists the AnyTXT runtime URL into config/bridge-search.config.json, and if a bridge-search mcporter entry already exists it will replace it instead of failing outright.

Manual MCP Registration

Warning

For AI agents to discover this skill correctly, the skill folder must be named windows-search within your designated skills directory.

If you cannot run setup_skill.py, register stdio yourself with mcporter:

mcporter config add bridge-search \
  --command python3 \
  --arg /absolute/path/to/Bridge-Search/scripts/server.py \
  --description "WSL-to-Windows search bridge (Everything/AnyTXT)" \
  --persist ~/.mcporter/mcporter.json

If you use a venv with the package installed (pip install -e . from the repo), you can point mcporter at the venv’s python and pass -m / bridge_search instead of scripts/server.py (same stdio MCP).

For OpenClaw, manually add bridge-search to alsoAllow for your agent, then run openclaw gateway restart.

Installer note: setup_skill.py no longer edits ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json unless you explicitly pass --openclaw-allowlist.

Uninstalling

mcporter config remove bridge-search --persist ~/.mcporter/mcporter.json
# Optionally remove the repo directory and venv
rm -rf /path/to/Bridge-Search

For OpenClaw, remove bridge-search from alsoAllow in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json and run openclaw gateway restart.

🛡️ Security Model

TL;DR: Bridge Search includes built-in safeguards to prevent your AI from accidentally modifying critical OS files or endlessly scanning your hard drive. The MCP process runs with your standard user privileges. Controls are defence in depth, relying on workflow flags and path resolution.

Protection Mechanism	Description
Path Denylist	Paths are resolved via realpath and checked against a denylist of sensitive prefixes (e.g., /etc, /mnt/c/Windows, /usr).
Optional Allowlist	Set BRIDGE_SEARCH_ALLOWED_PREFIXES in environment or security.allowed_prefixes in config. The env parser accepts : or ;; prefer ; when any C:\... path is present. If set, operations and search results are strictly filtered to these folders.
Confirmation Flags	All write/delete operations require the is_confirmed=True flag from the agent by default. (Note: This is a workflow check, not OS-level authorisation).
Safer File Ops	Copy/move require explicit overwrite opt-in, block self-targeting and copy-into-self mistakes, and delete refuses root and home-directory targets.
Encoding & Symlink Policy	Text reads try common Windows/Unicode encodings before failing. Mutating operations are blocked on symlink paths so the agent must act on the resolved real path explicitly.
Search Root Limits	WSL content/filename searches default to $HOME. Searching from / requires explicit opt-in via config keys like security.allow_grep_from_filesystem_root.
Timeouts & DoS Caps	Directory listing, locator hits, AnyTXT HTTP responses, and subprocess calls have caps/timeouts (for example limits.max_catalog_lines, limits.anytxt_max_response_bytes, limits.command_timeout_seconds).
AnyTXT URL Scope	The AnyTXT HTTP endpoint is operator-controlled (service.anytxt_url or BRIDGE_SEARCH_ANYTXT_URL). It should point to localhost or a private-network host only. The bridge logs a stderr warning when a non-private host or non-http(s) scheme is configured.

⚠️ Warning: Each example JSON file includes a _security_warning field. Read it before editing. Relaxing these settings (like using path_denylist: "none" or disabling confirmation flags) is at your own risk.

🧱 Architecture Notes

See ARCHITECTURE.md for the internal design, backend flow, pagination strategy, timeout model, and installer posture.

Release notes: CHANGELOG.md.

🤝 Contributing & Support

If you encounter a bug or have a feature request, please open an issue. To contribute code:

1. Clone the repository.
2. Install developer dependencies: python3 scripts/setup_skill.py --venv --dev (requires Python 3.10+).
3. Make your changes and run the test suite: python3 -m pytest
4. Submit a pull request.

📝 License

MIT