web-search-guidance

name	web-search-guidance
description	Use for precise web searches when the user needs better query construction, domain scoping, file-type filtering, recency filtering, language targeting, or Goggles-based reranking.

Brave Web Search

Use this skill when web results are noisy or when the user wants targeted search behavior.

How to use this in pi

• Use web_search for Brave search.
• Put the search text in query.
• Use tool params for filtering:
  • freshness for time windows
  • searchLang for preferred language
  • country / uiLang for regional behavior
  • goggles for custom reranking
  • extraSnippets when the first snippet is not enough
• After identifying promising URLs, use web_fetch or web_fetch_rendered to inspect page content.

Query syntax

Brave supports standard search operators inside the query string.

Goal	Syntax	Example
Restrict to a site/domain	site:example.com	site:github.com/microsoft typescript project references
Match file extension	ext:pdf	postgres indexing ext:pdf
Match file type	filetype:pdf	zig allocator guide filetype:pdf
Require term in title	intitle:term	intitle:changelog bun sqlite
Require term in body	inbody:term	inbody:"breaking change" react router
Require term in page	inpage:term	inpage:benchmark bun sqlite
Restrict by language	lang:de	lang:de bun sqlite tutorial
Restrict by country	loc:us	loc:us privacy law updates
Force include term	+term	jaguar +car
Exclude term	-term	jaguar -car -animal
Exact phrase	"exact phrase"	"agent skills"
Boolean AND	A AND B	bun AND sqlite
Boolean OR	A OR B	bun OR deno benchmark
Boolean NOT	NOT term	python packaging NOT poetry

Freshness values

Use the freshness tool parameter, not query text.

Value	Meaning
pd	Past day
pw	Past week
pm	Past month
py	Past year
YYYY-MM-DDtoYYYY-MM-DD	Custom date range

Examples:

• freshness: "pw"
• freshness: "2026-01-01to2026-03-01"

Search recipes

Official docs

• site:docs.example.com "feature name"
• site:developer.mozilla.org AbortController

GitHub code/docs discovery

• site:github.com/org/repo "symbol name"
• site:github.com "release notes" "repo name"

PDF/manual search

• "topic" filetype:pdf
• site:example.com filetype:pdf installation guide

Recent updates

• Query with freshness: "pm" or "pw"
• Example: bun sqlite changelog

Reduce spam/noise

• term -site:pinterest.com -site:quora.com
• add site: when the trusted source is known

Multilingual search

• set searchLang
• optionally add lang:xx in the query when exact language filtering matters

Goggles

Goggles rerank Brave results.

Use Goggles when:

• the user wants trusted-source prioritization
• results are polluted by SEO spam
• you have a known hosted Goggle definition

Pass them via the goggles array tool parameter.

Query construction guidelines

• Keep the query focused on the topic, entity, source, and exact terms you want to match.
• Prefer tool parameters over natural-language filter phrases in the query:
  • use freshness instead of adding phrases like past month, last week, or today
  • use searchLang for language preference
  • use country / uiLang for regional behavior
  • use goggles for reranking
• Avoid expressing the same constraint both in query text and in tool parameters unless you specifically need both.

Notes

• Prefer a small number of precise operators over long complicated queries.
• Use site: early when the source is known.
• Use extraSnippets: true when deciding between similar results.
• After search, fetch the top URLs instead of relying only on snippets.