🔗 direct-img.link

Live images in markdown, powered by search.

Give your AI a system instruction to embed images using direct-img.link and they just work — no uploads, no APIs, no tokens.

Usage

![orange cat](https://direct-img.link/orange+cat)
![sunset at beach](https://direct-img.link/sunset+at+beach)
![current us president](https://direct-img.link/current+us+president)

That's it. The image is searched, cached, and served.

URL Format

Use + to separate words, like Google:

https://direct-img.link/orange+cat
https://direct-img.link/new+york+city

Query	URL
orange cat	/orange+cat
spider-man	/spider-man
u.s. president	/u.s.+president
90's fashion	/90%27s+fashion

Picking a Result

Add ?i= to serve a later search result instead of the first, e.g. when the first image isn't the one you want:

https://direct-img.link/orange+cat?i=2

• i is 1–20, default 1. Invalid values serve bad.webp
• Leading zeros are ignored (?i=02 = ?i=2)
• Only images that download count, so broken links and deleted photos are skipped and every i is a different image. ?i=2 is the 2nd working image
• Higher i values take a little longer, since the working images before it are downloaded to count them
• If there aren't i working images, bad.webp is served
• Each i is searched and cached separately, and counts as its own search

Query Normalization

All queries are normalized before caching and searching:

Rule	Example	Result
+ and %20 are treated as spaces	orange+cat, orange%20cat	orange cat
Lowercased	Orange+Cat	orange cat
Trimmed	+orange+cat+	orange cat
Multiple spaces collapsed	orange++cat	orange cat
Trailing slashes stripped	orange+cat/	orange cat
Control characters removed	orange\x00cat	orangecat
Slashes & Dots rejected	info.php, wp-admin/	bad.webp served
Max length: 200 characters	—	400 error if exceeded

Characters that work fine

• Letters, numbers, spaces — standard queries
• Hyphens (spider-man), apostrophes (90's) — passed through
• Unicode (café, 日本) — supported via URL encoding

Slashes and Dots must be encoded

Literal slashes (/) and dots (.) in the URL path are rejected to prevent bot abuse (e.g. info.php or wp-admin/ probes). If your query genuinely contains these characters, you must encode them:

Query	URL
AC/DC	/AC%2FDC ✅
node.js	/node%2Ejs ✅
info.php	/info.php ❌ (rejected)
AC/DC	/AC/DC ❌ (rejected)

Things to know

• Query parameters (?...) other than i (and src on free. and ai.direct-img.link) serve bad.webp — /orange+cat?size=large ❌
• Fragments (#...) are never sent to the server by browsers
• Double-encoded values are decoded once — %2520 becomes %20 (literal), not a space
• Two queries that normalize to the same string share the same cached image
• Nothing found? If a search finds no image (or fewer than i working ones), an AI image of the query is served instead of bad.webp. It's kept for 24h, so a later search can still find a real one. bad.webp is only served if the AI image fails too

Free Images

Need images you can publish? free.direct-img.link only serves images marked free of restrictions (public domain or CC0), so no credit is needed. Same URL format, plus an optional src:

![orange cat](https://free.direct-img.link/orange+cat)
![orange cat](https://free.direct-img.link/orange+cat?i=2)
![orange cat](https://free.direct-img.link/orange+cat?src=wikimedia&i=2)

Param	Values	Default
src	openverse, wikimedia (case-insensitive)	Openverse, then Wikimedia once Openverse's results run out
i	1–20 — works the same as on the main site	1

• Both are optional and can be used alone or together, in any order (?i=2&src=wikimedia = ?src=wikimedia&i=2)
• Invalid values serve bad.webp
• Each src + i + query combination is searched and cached separately, and counts as its own search

Sources:

• Openverse — searched with license=cc0,pdm, JPG/PNG/GIF/WebP only. Made using the Openverse API, but not endorsed or certified by Openverse.
• Wikimedia Commons — searched with filetype:bitmap haslicense:unrestricted (Commons' own "no restrictions" filter). Served at up to 1920px wide.

Licenses come from each source's metadata and can be wrong. Check the original before publishing anything important.

AI Images

ai.direct-img.link generates an image of anything instead of searching, so it never comes up empty. Same URL format, plus an optional src:

![frog wizard](https://ai.direct-img.link/frog+wizard)
![frog wizard](https://ai.direct-img.link/frog+wizard?i=2)
![frog wizard](https://ai.direct-img.link/frog+wizard?src=auroraimg-6m&i=2)

Param	Values	Default
src	auroraimg-6m (case-insensitive)	auroraimg-6m
i	1–20 — each is a different image of the same query	1

• The same query, src and i always give the same image
• Invalid values serve bad.webp
• Images come from AuroraIMG-6M, a tiny 6.8M-parameter model running on our own server. They're 512px, soft and painterly: the right colors, setting and mood, but often not the exact object, and faces come out distorted
• The same model makes the fallback images for searches that find nothing

For AI System Prompts

Add this to your system instructions:

When writing markdown, embed relevant images/gifs using direct-img.link — a free image search proxy that returns images directly from a URL. But keep it entertaining, for example use it to show reaction faces, girl, or fun, not technical.
Example structure:
![Cat Gif](https://direct-img.link/cat+gif)
Use images to complement your responses, powered by Brave.

Rate Limits

Limits change over time, so they aren't listed here. Check the Rate Limits section on direct-img.link for the current limits.

• New searches (cache misses) are limited per IP per day, then limit.webp is served. direct-img.link, free.direct-img.link and ai.direct-img.link have separate counters, all reset at midnight UTC
• Cache hits are unlimited (within the burst limit)
• Searches that find nothing count toward the limit. The AI image served instead (or bad.webp, if that fails too) is kept for 24h
• A Cloudflare WAF burst limit applies to all requests (HTTP 429). Its counters are approximate (not shared perfectly across Cloudflare servers), so bursts may slip slightly past it

Caching

• Images are cached for 90 days, except AI images served because a search found nothing, which are kept for 24 hours
• After expiry, the next request triggers a fresh search
• Images are stored in their original format as fetched from source (AI images are WebP)
• A matching R2 lifecycle rule deletes stored objects after 90 days

Support

Free community service. Donations help cover API and infrastructure costs.

GitHub Sponsors: github.com/sponsors/multipleof4

BTC: bc1q3d975cd57205dx6mz05s2g27xujxsc3q0nlv59

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Self-Hosting

1. Brave Search API Key

1. Go to brave.com/search/api
2. Click Get Started
3. Create a Brave account or sign in
4. Subscribe — you get $5 in free monthly credits (covers 1,000 queries/month)
5. Go to your API dashboard
6. Copy your API key (starts with BSA...)

2. Openverse API Credentials (Optional)

Free images work without credentials, but anonymous Openverse requests are limited to 200/day. Register once to get higher limits:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"name":"<unique app name>","description":"<what you use it for>","email":"<your email>"}' https://api.openverse.org/v1/auth_tokens/register/

1. Save the returned client_id and client_secret — they can't be retrieved later
2. Click the verification link Openverse emails you (until then, anonymous limits apply)
3. Add them as the OPENVERSE_CLIENT_ID and OPENVERSE_CLIENT_SECRET secrets below

The function exchanges them for an access token (valid ~12h) and caches it in KV, fetching a new one automatically when it expires.

3. Cloudflare Resources

Create in your Cloudflare dashboard:

Resource	Name	Purpose
R2 Bucket	direct-img-store	Stores cached images
KV Namespace	DIRECT_IMG_CACHE	Cache existence + content type + timestamp

4. Pages Bindings

Settings → Functions → Bindings:

Type	Variable	Resource
R2 Bucket	R2_IMAGES	direct-img-store
KV Namespace	DIRECT_IMG_CACHE	DIRECT_IMG_CACHE

5. Secrets

Settings → Environment variables:

Variable	Description	Required
BRAVE_API_KEY	Brave Search API key	Yes
OPENVERSE_CLIENT_ID	Openverse app client ID (free images)	Optional
OPENVERSE_CLIENT_SECRET	Openverse app client secret (free images)	Optional
SURREAL_URL	SurrealDB URL (e.g. https://db.site.com)	Yes
SURREAL_USER	SurrealDB username	Yes
SURREAL_PASS	SurrealDB password	Yes
NTFY_URL	ntfy.sh topic URL for alerts	Optional
GOATCOUNTER_URL	GoatCounter site URL for image hit analytics (e.g. https://direct-img.goatcounter.com)	Optional
GOATCOUNTER_TOKEN	GoatCounter API token with "Record pageviews" permission	Optional
AURORA_API_KEY	Key for the AuroraIMG-6M API (AI images and the nothing-found fallback). Without it, ai. serves bad.webp and searches that find nothing serve bad.webp	Optional

6. WAF Rules

Security → WAF → Rate limiting rules:

1. Rate Limit — 10 req/10s per IP → Block 10s

7. Deploy

Fork this repo, connect to Cloudflare Pages, deploy.

8. Free and AI Images Domains

Pages project → Custom domains → Set up a domain: add free.<your-domain> and ai.<your-domain>. Any hostname starting with free. serves free images, and any starting with ai. serves AI images; everything else serves regular search.

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Infrastructure Details

R2: direct-img-store

Key: <sha256-of-KV-key> (see below) — for a plain query with no i, that's the SHA-256 of the normalized query. Free images use free/<sha256-of-KV-key>, AI images ai/<sha256-of-KV-key>. Derived from the request, no lookup needed. Stored with original content type from source.

Add an object lifecycle rule in R2 → direct-img-store → Settings that applies to all prefixes and deletes uploaded objects after 90 days. This removes expired objects even when their query is never requested again.

KV: DIRECT_IMG_CACHE

Key: normalized query (lowercase, trimmed, max 200 chars) → Value: {"t":1719000000,"ct":"image/jpeg"} — TTL: 90 days

Other keys share the namespace. They use uppercase prefixes, which can never collide with normalized (always lowercase) queries:

Key	Value	TTL
WEB:<i>:<query> — main site with i > 1 (e.g. WEB:2:orange cat)	Same as above	90 days
FREE:<src or auto>:<i>:<query> (e.g. FREE:wikimedia:2:orange cat)	Same as above	90 days
AI:<src>:<i>:<query> (e.g. AI:auroraimg-6m:2:frog wizard)	Same as above	90 days
OPENVERSE_TOKEN	Openverse access token	Token lifetime minus 10 min

An AI image served because a search found nothing is stored under the search's own key with "ttl":86400 added to the value, and kept for 24h. A search where that also fails stores {"t":…,"err":true} for 24h.

Database: SurrealDB (Rate Limiting + Search Locks)

Using atomic database transactions over HTTP to track per-IP/per-day search frequencies securely and rapidly.

The same transaction also claims a per-query lock (lock:<sha256-of-KV-key>, expires after 45s), so when several requests miss the cache for the same query at once (on any Cloudflare server), only one searches. The others wait for it to finish, then serve the image it stored in R2, and aren't counted toward the daily limit. The lock is deleted as soon as the result is stored.

Note: This implementation is tested and verified for SurrealDB v2.6.5.

After deploying, visit https://<your-domain>/_setup once. It creates the direct_img namespace, rate_limit database, rate table, an updated_at index (used by the cleanup query) and the lock table. It's idempotent, so visiting again is harmless, and it returns {"ok":true} on success.

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Stack

• Cloudflare Pages — hosting + edge functions
• Cloudflare R2 — image storage
• Cloudflare KV — generic lookups
• SurrealDB (v2.6.5) — atomic rate limiting + search locks
• Cloudflare WAF — layer 7 mitigation
• Brave Image Search API — image sourcing
• Openverse API + Wikimedia Commons API — free image sourcing
• AuroraIMG-6M on Dokploy — AI images and the nothing-found fallback

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direct-img.link — because ![](https://direct-img.link/thing) should just work.