Dethrottled

One local engine for agents that need the web. Dethrottled discovers sources, reads pages and files, operates a real browser, and retains evidence for follow-up. It returns source references, warnings and concrete continuation steps. Your agent or application decides what the evidence supports.

The default stack needs no API key, paid search subscription or model API. It runs on native AMD64 and ARM64 Docker hosts. Public sites can still block requests; retries, queues and storage have limits. Optional paid discovery integrations remain opt-in and are not required by the default workflow.

Install the complete engine

Install Docker Engine and Compose, then:

python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
pip install dethrottled
dethrottled stack up
dethrottled stack status

The Python distribution includes matching deployment sources: no Git clone is needed. stack up builds/downloads the five default services and waits for readiness. Installing the package alone starts nothing and downloads no models.

dethrottled stack up --profile full  # add local speech and PDF layout workers
dethrottled stack down               # keep documents, cache and model volumes

Use --project NAME --port PORT for an isolated installation. Speech/layout model weights initialize on first use; status reports this separately from readiness. See installation choices and measured requirements. Standalone Python/library use remains available, with capabilities determined by its installed libraries, system tools and external workers.

Prefer a checkout? Both routes run the same default services:

git clone https://github.com/halonyx-io/dethrottled.git
cd dethrottled
docker compose up -d --build

The API listens on 127.0.0.1:8787. Connect locally over REST, or configure the optional authenticated REST/MCP adapters for remote agents. The raw API has no caller authentication.

Follow the evidence

A normal fetch runs the recovery policy automatically. When content remains incomplete, read_plan and workflow.next_actions expose useful continuations, including reuse of the same browser session. Agents can also operate /drive directly. Read the agent integration guide for tool selection and response contracts.

curl -sS http://127.0.0.1:8787/fetch \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"urls":["https://docs.python.org/3/library/sqlite3.html"],"focus":"in-memory database"}'

Preserve quality, warnings, source_partial, truncated, document_id and continuation metadata. A successful HTTP response is not proof of a complete, relevant or correct read. OCR and speech may need checking against source pixels or audio. Interactive challenges can remain unresolved.

Measured on two machines

The current installation and benchmark report compares a Radxa Dragon Q6A ARM64 board with an AMD Ryzen szbox. It preserves installation failures and fixes, controlled browser/document checks, 50 live search questions, 30 fixed fetch targets and six research tasks per device. Fresh acquisition, cache-enabled repeats and optional workers are reported separately. Every plotted value is generated from retained case data.

The live ok label is the engine's assessment, not verified answer correctness. The report separately records topic-marker retention, thin results and failures.

These are observed workloads, not universal minimum requirements or a paid-service superiority claim. Earlier evaluations proved native Reddit interaction and recovery on specific pages; Crunchbase and G2 remained blocked. Current live outcomes, historical reports and limits are linked in the evidence index. Neural live-web reranking remains disabled.

Explore the engine

The default API image includes native document readers, Tesseract and MiniLM/E5 corpus models. Mutable evidence, jobs, cache and corpus use a named data volume; browser checkpoints and optional model caches have their own volumes. GPU access is optional. No .env file or worker URL is required for the default stack.

The fetch ladder does not consult robots.txt. Raw API access to trusted LAN targets requires care; public adapters enforce narrower policies, alongside operator-provided network isolation. See operations.

This checkout is 1.4.0. Check /health and /v2/capabilities on the service you actually use; deployed services and remote plugins can differ from a checkout.

MIT license · Maintained by Halonyx