Web search without a paid search API

A paid structured-search API is not in the default PersonFinder path. That keeps cost predictable and avoids a hard dependency on a third-party search SKU.

When GitHub and a LinkedIn URL do not yield enough public trail, we fetch DuckDuckGo HTML results and look for portfolio and contact pages in snippets.

HTML search is slower and more fragile than a structured API. We accept that trade-off for the public product. If a search provider is added later, it will be documented — we will not pretend it is live today.

Portfolio URLs from search still go through the same extractors as GitHub-linked sites. Emails still get MX checks. The picker still only chooses from found addresses.