The Anubis list format

An Anubis list is a plain text file. It uses the Brave Goggles syntax and adds tags, so any public Goggle already works as an Anubis list, and an Anubis list reads like a Goggle with labels.

Lists live wherever text files can: a GitHub or GitLab repository, a gist, Codeberg. There is no Anubis server. People subscribe by pasting the file's link into Settings → Lists, and propose changes the way they would to any repository: an issue or a pull request.

Your own list, the one the button on each result edits, is stored in this format too, so publishing it is a matter of downloading it and putting it online.

A small example

! name: Official docs
! description: Tags first-party documentation and nudges it up.
! author: Anubis contributors
! homepage: https://github.com/Bishop-V/anubis/tree/main/lists
! issues: https://github.com/Bishop-V/anubis/issues
! license: CC0-1.0
! avatar: #2f5fae
! expires: 7 days
! tag: docs | Official docs | #2f5fae | Documentation published by the project or vendor itself.

$site=developer.mozilla.org,tag=docs,boost=1 # MDN publishes first-party web platform documentation.
$site=docs.python.org,tag=docs,boost=1 # This is Python's official documentation.
/docs/$site=nodejs.org,tag=docs # Node.js publishes its documentation here.

Header

Lines starting with ! are comments. A comment of the form ! key: value is metadata:

Key	Meaning
name	The list's name, shown in settings and in the menu on each result.
description	One or two sentences on what the list is for.
author	Who maintains it.
homepage	Where to read more.
issues	An issue tracker. When set, the menu on each result offers "Suggest it to this list", which opens a pre-filled issue, and reports of mistakes ("Wrong? Report it to this list") go there. Without it, reports go to the issue tracker of the repository in homepage, or else of the one the list is published from. GitHub, GitLab, and Codeberg trackers are supported.
license	The license of the list's contents. CC0-1.0 is a good default for lists meant to be shared.
avatar	A hex colour for the list.
expires	How often Anubis should check for updates, as N hours or N days. The default is a day.
tag	Defines a tag. See below. May appear many times.

public and transferred_to from Goggles are accepted and ignored.

When adding a tagged site rule to an Anubis list, put an explanation after # saying why the site fits. It is kept as a comment, not read as an instruction.

Tags

! tag: id | Label | #colour | Description

• id: lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens, up to 32 characters. Lists that use the same id share the tag: if two lists both tag sites ai-slop, a subscriber sees one "AI slop" tag fed by both. Agreeing on ids is how communities build a shared vocabulary.
• Label: what people see under results.
• Colour: a hex colour. Optional; Anubis picks one from the id otherwise.
• Description: optional, shown on hover and in settings.

Only the id is required: ! tag: ai-slop works. A tag used by an instruction but never defined gets a plain definition.

Lists label; subscribers decide. In Settings → Tags each person chooses what a tag does for them: follow the list's instructions, only show the label, highlight results, or raise, lower, or hide them. A list that tags without ranking ($site=x.com,tag=paywall) is the friendliest kind to publish.

Instructions

One per line:

pattern$option,option=value,…

The pattern is optional when site= is given. Everything after the last $ is options.

Patterns (Goggles syntax)

A pattern is matched anywhere in the result's URL, case-insensitively.

Character	Meaning
*	Any run of characters. At most two per instruction.
^	A separator (anything but a letter, digit, ., _, % or -) or the end of the URL. At most two per instruction.
`	` at the start
`	` at the end

/blog/$site=medium.com matches Medium URLs containing /blog/. |https://en. matches English Wikipedia and anything else under https://en..

Options

Option	Meaning
site=example.com	Only this domain and its subdomains. Goggles also allow a bare suffix like site=rs.
boost or boost=N	Raise matching results by N positions (1 to 10, default 1).
downrank or downrank=N	Lower them by N positions.
discard	Hide them.
tag=id	Tag them. Repeat for several tags: tag=docs,tag=reference.
pin	Put them first. Honoured in your own list; a subscribed list's pin counts as boost=10.
allow	Keep them at normal, overriding other lists. Mostly useful in your own list.
inurl	Match the pattern against the URL (the default).
intitle	Match the pattern against the result's title.
indescription / incontent	Match against the result's snippet.

An instruction with no action and no tag boosts by 1, as in Goggles. An instruction with only tags leaves the ranking alone.

An Anubis rule can end with a comment after whitespace and #. For example, $site=example.com,tag=docs # The project publishes its documentation here. The comment explains why the site fits the tag and is ignored when Anubis reads the rule.

Lenses

A line with nothing but $discard turns the list into a lens: every result the list doesn't mention is hidden. Brave's "Tech blogs" and "Hacker News" Goggles work this way. Anubis marks lenses in settings so nobody subscribes to one by surprise.

How lists combine

For each result, strongest first:

1. Your own list. A site you pinned, raised, lowered, hid, or kept at normal stays that way whatever your subscriptions say. The most specific entry wins, so good.fandom.com can be raised while fandom.com is hidden.
2. Your tag choices. If you chose "Hide" for a tag, results carrying it are hidden, whichever list tagged them. Tags you set to "Raise" or "Lower" add up, five places each: two raises and a lower make one raise. Each tag counts once, however many lists give it, and a rule carrying a tag you chose for leaves the ranking to your choice instead of its own boost or downrank.
3. Subscribed lists. Within one list, Goggles precedence applies: discard beats boost, which beats downrank. Across lists, boosts and downranks add up, and any list's discard hides the result.

Reranking moves results within the page you're on (and within extra pages brought in with Load more results): each boost point moves a result up one place.

Other formats Anubis reads

Anubis detects the format of each file, so existing lists work without changes.

• Brave Goggles: everything above except tags, pin and allow.
• uBlacklist rulesets: match patterns (*://*.example.com/*), regular expressions (/example\.(net|org)/; one that repeats a repeated group, like /(a+)+/, is skipped, since it can freeze search pages), unblock rules (@…, treated as allow) and highlight rules (@1…, turned into a highlight-1 tag). YAML front matter supplies the name. Expression rules such as title *= "x" and @if(…) guards are skipped and counted in settings.
• Plain domain lists: one domain per line, hidden. Hosts-file lines (0.0.0.0 example.com) work too.

Publishing a list

1. Write the file, or download your own from Settings → Backup.
2. Put it in a public repository or gist. Any file extension works; .anubis helps people recognise it.
3. Share the link. GitHub page links, gist links, and search.brave.com/goggles?goggles_id=… links are all converted to the raw file automatically.
4. Set ! issues: so people can suggest additions from the menu on each result.
5. To have it listed in Settings → Lists for everyone, add an entry to lists/directory.json in a pull request.