Replace Google Search API for media search commands

[Mirasii]

Google Custom Search JSON API Sunsetting

Google is closing the Custom Search JSON API to new customers and existing customers have until January 1, 2027 to transition.

Affected Commands

• /clown (src/commands/polka.ts) - Omaru Polka image search
• /fox (src/commands/fubuki.ts) - Shirakami Fubuki image search

Current Implementation

src/helpers/googleSearch.ts uses googleapis.com/customsearch/v1 with searchType: image to return random image results by query.

Alternative Providers

Provider	Free Tier	Notes
Brave Search API	2,000 calls/month	&search_type=images, general web image search
SerpAPI	100 searches/month	Returns Google Image results via proxy
Bing Image Search API	1,000 calls/month	Azure, similar API shape to current impl
Gelbooru / Danbooru	Unlimited, no key	Anime-specific, best fit for current use case

Plan

Implement as a standalone bot (similar to BongBot-Ptero) with a swappable image search provider.
Pros:

• Ground-Up Brand New Implementation
• No knowledge of existing bot features required
• Allows for more recent design practices to be implemented easier

Deadline

January 1, 2027

Additional features

Current preference is towards Danbooru, with an eye to extend the search functionality with custom searches.

[Mirasii]

To be worked on https://github.com/PookieSoft/BongBot-Booru
Repo set up. Copy structure from -Ptero to have as both a package available to BongBot and a standalone bot.
Probably makes sense to include a generic search on top of pre-defined ones.

[itzuimao]

Danbooru probably is the best fit for the anime-specific side, but if you still want a general web/image fallback for broader queries, it may be worth keeping a SERP provider in the abstraction layer. SerpBase could be a reasonable lower-friction option there instead of coupling everything to one search source.