| name | internet-search |
| description | How to use the internet_search tool effectively — category routing, query formulation, and multi-search strategies. Use whenever web search is needed: current events, research papers, community opinions, or any information beyond training knowledge. |
Internet Search
Queries a self-hosted SearXNG instance aggregating multiple search engines.
Category Routing
Always set category based on the nature of the query.
| Category | When to use | Engines |
|---|
general | Default. Facts, how-tos, products, people, broad web. | Brave, Bing, DDG, Startpage, Qwant, Wikipedia… |
news | Recent events, breaking news, anything time-sensitive. | Bing News, DDG News |
academic | Research papers, studies, medical literature, preprints. | arXiv, Google Scholar, PubMed |
social | Opinions, community recommendations, "what do people think about X". | Reddit |
Query Formulation
Write queries as a search engine expects — keywords, not full sentences:
# Bad
"what is the fastest async runtime for rust"
# Good
"rust async runtime benchmarks 2025"
- news: include a time anchor —
"OpenAI o3 release 2025" not just "OpenAI o3"
- academic: use field terminology —
"transformer attention efficiency survey"
- social: phrase as community search —
"reddit best mechanical keyboard 2025"
Count
count=5 (default) — sufficient for most taskscount=10 — comparing many options, checking consensuscount=3 — quick fact checks
Multi-Search Strategy
Fire multiple focused searches rather than one broad one:
# Bad: one vague search
internet_search("best way to deploy Node.js")
# Good: three targeted searches
internet_search("Node.js Docker deployment best practices 2025")
internet_search("Node.js PM2 vs Docker production", category="social")
internet_search("Node.js zero-downtime deployment strategies")
Combine general + social for factual + sentiment coverage:
internet_search("Bun runtime performance vs Node.js benchmarks")
internet_search("Bun runtime production experience", category="social")
When NOT to Use
- Things you already know with high confidence
- Stable API docs or well-known syntax — use training knowledge
- Repeating a search that already answered the question
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | Fix |
|---|
general for a research paper | Use category="academic" |
| Searching "what happened today" | Use category="news" with a specific topic |
| One broad search for a multi-part question | Break into 2–3 focused searches |
| Repeating a failed search verbatim | Rephrase with different keywords |
count=20 for a simple fact | Default count=5 is almost always enough |
