| name | web-search |
| description | MUST USE when the user needs current, online, or web-derived information — news, latest releases, vendor docs, real-world examples, recent changes, or anything not in the model's training set. LLM-neutral skill that exposes a unified web search CLI behind a single command. Runs single or multi-provider in parallel, saves raw + normalized JSON to a temp directory, prints the path so callers can pipe through rg / jq / grep. Zero-config out of the box. Works identically on macOS, Linux, WSL, Git Bash for Windows, and any environment with Python 3.8+. Triggers: 'search the web', 'look up online', 'google this', 'find current information', 'latest news', 'recent docs', 'check the internet', 'web search', 'browser search', 'research this', 'what is the latest', 'who is X', 'find examples of', 'is there documentation for', 'how do people solve', 'web-search', 'web_search'. |
Web Search
Run a search across one or many providers, get a JSON file you can pipe through rg, jq, or any other tool. Use this whenever the answer depends on current information that may not be in your training data — recent releases, today's news, a specific vendor's API as of this week, real-world example usage of a library, security advisories, etc.
Decision: should I use this skill?
| Question matches | Use web-search? | Why |
|---|
| "What is the current X?" / "What's the latest Y?" | yes | Time-sensitive |
| "Find examples of how people use library Z" | yes | Real-world code corpus |
| "What did vendor announce about A this month?" | yes | Recent vendor announcements |
| "Look up the docs for command-line flag B" | yes | Authoritative reference |
| "What's the syntax for X?" (well-known language feature) | no | Use training knowledge |
| "Explain the difference between concept C and D" | maybe | Use training first; confirm with search if user wants citations |
| "Find the file in this codebase that does X" | no | Use grep / explore; not web search |
If you decide to search, choose the right invocation pattern below.
How to invoke
Three patterns, in order of complexity:
Pattern 1: single provider (most common)
python3 scripts/web-search "<your query>"
Uses the configured default provider (DuckDuckGo if no API keys are set up). Reads stdout for a human-readable preview AND a machine footer that names the result file:
=== duckduckgo (10 results, 393ms) ===
[1] Python (programming language)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)
Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language...
[2] ...
--- WEBSEARCH ---
RESULT_FILE: /tmp/web-search/20260501T073731Z/combined.json
RUN_DIR: /tmp/web-search/20260501T073731Z
PROVIDERS: duckduckgo
TOTAL_RESULTS: 10
Pattern 2: specific provider
python3 scripts/web-search --provider tavily "<query>"
python3 scripts/web-search --provider perplexity "<query>" --max-results 5
python3 scripts/web-search --provider anthropic "<query>"
Use a specific provider when you want a known feature — Perplexity for recency-filtered queries, Tavily for clean LLM snippets, Anthropic/OpenAI/xAI for model-mediated synthesis.
Pattern 3: parallel multi-provider
python3 scripts/web-search --providers tavily,brave,perplexity "<query>"
python3 scripts/web-search --all "<query>"
Use multi-provider when:
- the topic is novel and you want diverse indexes triangulating
- a single provider returned thin or unrelated results on the first try
- the user asked for "thorough research" or "from multiple sources"
The skill saves each provider's output independently, so partial failures still produce useful data.
Pattern 4: sequential fallback chain (config-driven)
Add a fallback field to your config and the skill runs providers sequentially, stopping at the first one that returns results:
{
"default": "brave",
"fallback": ["openai", "duckduckgo", "mwmbl"]
}
Now python3 scripts/web-search "<query>" (no --provider flag) tries brave first; if it errors out OR returns 0 results, it falls through to openai; missing credentials silently skip a slot, so the chain proceeds to duckduckgo, etc. Footer reports MODE: fallback and FALLBACK_TRIED: <providers that failed>.
Use a fallback chain when:
- you want resilience against rate limits / outages on a paid provider
- you want a free safety net under a paid primary
- you're future-proofing — list
openai in the chain today and it activates the moment you add an apiKey
--provider, --providers, --all all override the chain — use those when you want a specific behavior for one call.
Reading the results
Every run writes to <TMP_ROOT>/<run-id>/. The path appears in stdout as RESULT_FILE:. Default <TMP_ROOT> is /tmp/web-search on macOS/Linux and <system-temp>/web-search on Windows.
Three useful flags for downstream automation:
| Flag | Effect |
|---|
--print-path-only | Print only the absolute combined.json path. Use inside $(...). |
--json | Print the full manifest JSON to stdout. Pipe straight into jq. |
--no-preview | Skip the human preview, keep only the machine footer. |
Pipelines (the point of this skill)
The whole point of dumping JSON to disk is so you can filter, transform, and combine results without re-running the search. Examples:
RESULT=$(python3 scripts/web-search --all --print-path-only "...")
jq -r '.manifests[].results[].url' "$RESULT"
rg -i "release" "$RESULT"
python3 scripts/web-search --json "..." | jq '.manifests[].results[0]'
jq -r '.manifests[] | "\(.provider): \(.results[0].title) - \(.results[0].url)"' "$RESULT"
jq '[.manifests[].results[]] | unique_by(.url) | sort_by(-(.score // 0)) | .[:10]' "$RESULT"
Many more recipes in references/pipelines.md.
When the wrapper is not available
If the host has curl but no Python (some Windows machines, distroless containers, jailed CI), invoke the providers directly. Every provider's exact request shape is documented in references/curl-recipes.md. The output schema matches what the skill produces internally — same fields, same names.
Configuration
The skill works with zero configuration — DuckDuckGo and MWMBL accept anonymous calls. Provider variety improves with credentials. Drop a config file in any of these locations:
| OS | Path |
|---|
| macOS / Linux | ~/.config/web-search/config.json |
| Windows | %APPDATA%\web-search\config.json |
| Any (project-local) | ./web-search.json |
| Any (env var) | $WEBSEARCH_CONFIG points to a file |
Or set the matching env var (TAVILY_API_KEY, BRAVE_API_KEY, etc.) and the skill picks it up. See references/setup.md for per-provider key acquisition steps.
Validate your setup:
python3 scripts/web-search --check
python3 scripts/web-search --list-providers
baseUrl override (every provider)
Every provider supports a baseUrl field that fully replaces the default endpoint:
{
"providers": {
"tavily": {"apiKey": "tvly-...", "baseUrl": "https://eu.api.tavily.com/search"},
"anthropic": {"apiKey": "sk-ant-...", "baseUrl": "https://anthropic-gw.internal.example.com/v1/messages"},
"openai": {"apiKey": "sk-...", "baseUrl": "http://localhost:8787/openai/v1/responses"}
}
}
Use it for self-hosted proxies, regional mirrors, corporate gateways, or local mocks. The override is complete — the skill does not concatenate with the default. See references/base-urls.md for concrete patterns.
Cross-platform behavior
Identical commands work on macOS, Linux, WSL, Git Bash, Windows native, and containers. The Python script uses only the standard library and pathlib.Path for path handling — no shell-isms, no /-vs-\ issues.
Windows-specific notes:
# PowerShell:
$env:TAVILY_API_KEY = "tvly-..."
python scripts\web-search "your query"
# cmd.exe:
set TAVILY_API_KEY=tvly-...
python scripts\web-search "your query"
The shebang #!/usr/bin/env python3 is ignored on Windows — invoke python (or py) explicitly. Full guide in references/platform-notes.md.
Provider selection guide
| Provider | Auth | Best for |
|---|
duckduckgo | none | Quick factual lookups; "what is X" |
mwmbl | none | Free fallback for actual web links |
exa | required | Semantic search; technical queries |
tavily | required | LLM-friendly clean snippets |
brave | required | Independent index; privacy-sensitive |
serper | required | Google's organic results, cheap |
google-cse | required + CSE id | Official Google with custom engine |
z-ai | required | Chinese-language queries |
perplexity | required | Recency-filtered; pure or with answer |
xai | required | Grok web_search + x_search (X/Twitter posts) |
openai | required | Web search synthesized by GPT |
anthropic | required | Web search synthesized by Claude |
Full catalog with API shapes, server caps, and quirks: references/providers/index.md. Each provider has its own dedicated page (e.g. providers/tavily.md, providers/anthropic.md).
Domain filtering
Restrict results to or away from specific domains:
python3 scripts/web-search "..." --include docs.python.org,python.org
python3 scripts/web-search "..." --exclude reddit.com,medium.com
Both --include and --exclude accept comma-separated lists. Some providers (z-ai, xAI) have stricter caps — see the per-provider pages under references/providers/. Allowed and blocked are mutually exclusive at call time.
Cost awareness
| Tier | Providers |
|---|
| Free, no key | duckduckgo, mwmbl |
| Free with key (small free tier) | tavily, serper, google-cse, perplexity (small) |
| Paid per call | brave, z-ai, perplexity (volume), xai, openai, anthropic |
Model-mediated providers (xai, openai, anthropic) charge per call AND per token. Set maxUses (Anthropic) or max_tool_calls (OpenAI) in config to cap runaway agentic loops. For broad sweeps prefer the cheaper non-model providers and reserve LLM-mediated search for synthesis.
Failure modes
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|
config error: No default provider configured | No keys set, default unset | Run --check; configure at least one provider or use --provider duckduckgo |
[provider] HTTP 401 | Invalid or expired API key | Rotate the key; --check to verify |
[provider] HTTP 429 | Rate limit hit | Lower --parallelism, add delay between runs, or switch providers |
Failed to parse response: ... | Upstream changed schema OR baseUrl points at wrong path | Inspect <provider>-raw.json in the run dir |
| Empty preview, 0 results | Query too narrow OR provider has no relevant index | Try --all or a different provider |
The raw upstream response is always saved at <run-dir>/<provider>-raw.json so you can inspect failures without re-querying.
Reference index
| File | Contents |
|---|
references/providers/index.md + per-provider pages | Each of the 12 providers has its own page: endpoint, auth, request/response shape, setup, curl recipe, quirks, baseUrl pattern. The index has the comparison table and selection guide. |
references/setup.md | Step-by-step API key acquisition for each provider |
references/pipelines.md | rg / jq / awk recipes for filtering and combining results |
references/curl-recipes.md | Direct curl invocations per provider — Python-less fallback |
references/multi-provider.md | Parallel fan-out strategies, consensus ranking, failure isolation |
references/result-schema.md | Canonical JSON output schema; per-provider field mappings |
references/platform-notes.md | macOS / Linux / Windows / WSL / containers gotchas |
references/base-urls.md | baseUrl override patterns for proxies, gateways, mocks, mirrors |
Quick reference
python3 scripts/web-search [OPTIONS] "<query>"
--provider NAME Single provider (overrides default)
--providers a,b,c Comma-separated subset, run in parallel
--all Run every configured provider in parallel
--max-results N Cap per provider (default 10)
--include DOMAIN[,...] Allow-list domains
--exclude DOMAIN[,...] Block-list domains
--config PATH Override config file
--tmp-dir PATH Override output directory
--json Print full manifest to stdout
--print-path-only Print only the result file path
--raw Print raw upstream JSON
--list-providers Show configured providers and exit
--check Validate config, exit 0 if any provider works
When in doubt:
python3 scripts/web-search --provider duckduckgo "<query>"
