Field Notes

Turn Your Browser Bar into an AI Prompt Launcher

A tiny custom-search trick for ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.

The trick

Browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Vivaldi let you add custom search engines. A custom engine is just a template URL. The magic placeholder is %s, which the browser replaces with whatever you type.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s

If an AI service can start a new chat from a query-string URL, it can behave like a browser search engine.

AI chat URLs

ServiceTemplate URL
ChatGPThttps://chatgpt.com/?q=%s
Claudehttps://claude.ai/new?q=%s
Perplexityhttps://www.perplexity.ai/search?q=%s

How to use it

  1. Open your browser search engine settings.
  2. Add one of the template URLs above as a custom search engine.
  3. Give it a short keyword like gpt, claude, or px.
  4. In the address bar, type the keyword, a space, then your prompt.
  5. Hit Enter to start a new AI conversation.

Why it matters: the address bar becomes a lightweight command line for AI. You stay in flow instead of opening a site, finding a box, and pasting a prompt.