For my project, what I really need is a working relay URL that I can connect to directly. If I also need to build separate NIP 85 provider logic just to make search work, the search part of the project starts becoming much bigger than I intended. I’m happy to test the staging relay, but ideally I need an endpoint I can integrate as a normal search relay first. If that works, I can look at the NIP 85 side afterwards.

You can search without any nip 85, but then any search relay would work. You don't need us for that. We specialize in web of trust. The point of the relay is to have a filter by trust. Otherwise it would just be a regular nip 50 search relay.