Cant enable basic_auth in Caddyfile

[Jakaboii]

I am trying to host searxng docker on an instance on a server I own that would be publicly available online without basic_auth working.

I am unfamiliar with Caddy but I tried placing the basic_auth method in various places for none of them to work after ending at the bottom of my Caddyfile (below) and still never a prompt for authentication

# SearXNG
reverse_proxy localhost:8081
basic_auth {
        {$CUSTOM_HTTP_BASIC_AUTH_USER} {$CUSTOM_HTTP_BASIC_AUTH_PASS}
}

[Jakaboii]

I tinkered around again and so far I just get the prompt to authenticate but whenever I enter the details it just prompts me again

[Jakaboii]

The hashed password was too long :/