cloogle.org

What It Is

Cloogle is a dedicated search engine for the Clean programming language. It indexes the entire Nitrile registry and can be used to look up language built-ins, core library modules, library documentation, symbols, types, classes, syntax constructs, and error messages. Unlike a general full-text search engine, it supports Clean-specific type-signature search, such as finding functions that can be unified with a given type. In that sense, it plays a role similar to Hoogle in the Haskell ecosystem.

Core Capabilities and Ecosystem

Based on the main text, Cloogle supports searching by symbol name, documentation content, type signature, exact name, class, type, syntax construct, and error message; users can also browse the index and read documentation. The page lists many optional libraries, including json, http, lsp, xml, yaml, itasks, tcpip, regex, and others, indicating that its coverage is mainly centered on the Clean/Nitrile ecosystem. It also mentions programmatic interfaces, making it suitable for integration into editors, scripts, or developer tools, but the text does not provide details on API endpoints, authentication, rate limits, or SDKs.

Open Source, Self-Hosting, and Documentation

Cloogle-web is free software licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3, developed on GitLab, with issue feedback handled through an issue tracker. The open-source license is beneficial for auditing, secondary development, and potential self-hosting. However, the crawled text only states that the source code can be downloaded; it does not provide deployment steps, dependency requirements, or containerization options, so the practicality of self-hosting still requires checking the repository. In terms of documentation, the homepage directly provides multiple search syntax examples, making it easy to get started, but information on advanced APIs, deployment, and operations is limited.

Pricing, Pros and Cons, and Who It Is For

The main text does not mention commercial pricing or paid features, so combined with the AGPLv3 license, it can be regarded as a free and open-source tool. Its strengths are that its search capabilities are tailored to the Clean language, its type-based search is practical, it indexes the Nitrile registry, and it has a basis for open-source community collaboration. Its limitations are that its use case is very narrow and clearly valuable mainly to Clean users; API/SDK and service support information is insufficient; and the privacy policy states that the web server may keep plaintext IP logs for up to 3 years, which compliance-sensitive users should note.

Access from China

The crawled text does not provide information on availability from mainland China, mirrors, or payment, so this remains unknown. If access is unstable, users can consider consulting the official Clean documentation and the Nitrile registry locally, or self-hosting from the GitLab source code where feasible. For other language ecosystems, tools such as Hoogle are conceptually similar alternatives.