| name | web-search |
| description | Search the web and read page content using native pi tools — DuckDuckGo search results, web page fetching, and Mozilla Readability extraction. No external system tools required. Use when this capability is needed. |
| metadata | {"author":"emanuelcasco"} |
Web Search
Search the web and read page content using DuckDuckGo and Mozilla Readability extraction.
Prerequisites
No external system tools are required. Search and page fetching use the Node.js runtime built into pi.
Tools
web_search
Search the web using DuckDuckGo. Returns titles, URLs, and content snippets.
When to use:
- The user asks to find information online
- Looking up documentation not available locally
- Verifying facts or looking up recent data
Parameters:
query (string, required): Search querymaxResults (number, optional, default 5, max 10): How many results to returnmaxResponseChars (number, optional): Truncate output to this many characters
Guidelines:
- Always follow up with
web_read if the user needs full page content
- DuckDuckGo is used — no API key required
- Rate limits apply; avoid rapid repeated queries
web_read
Fetch a web page and extract readable content.
When to use:
- You need the full content of a specific page
- Following up on a
web_search result
- Reading documentation or articles
Parameters:
url (string, required): Page URL (must be http: or https:)maxChars (number, optional, default 8000, max 50000): How many characters of content to returnmaxResponseChars (number, optional): Truncate output to this many characters
Guidelines:
- Works best on article/blog pages
- JavaScript-heavy SPAs may return limited content (no JS execution)
- Private/internal URLs (
localhost, 127.0.0.1, 169.254.x.x, etc.) are blocked for security
Limitations
- No JavaScript rendering: Pages that require JS to load content will return incomplete results.
- HTML only: PDFs or other binary formats are not supported.
- DuckDuckGo rate limiting: Aggressive querying may be throttled.
Source: emanuelcasco/pi-mono-extensions — distributed by TomeVault.
