unique-cli-web-search

name

unique-cli-web-search

description

Search the public web and crawl URLs via the Unique AI Platform's `unique-cli web-search` command, with automatic per-turn citation tracking so cited web facts render as clickable external reference chips and `<sup>N</sup>` footnotes on the Unique platform. ALWAYS use this skill when the user asks to search the public web, research a topic online, look up news/articles/regulations, fetch the contents of one or more URLs, or perform any "two-phase" web research (search → review snippets → crawl selected URLs for full content). Routes through the Unique AI Platform's `/web-search-api` endpoints, so the engine (Google, Brave, Tavily, Jina, Firecrawl, …) and crawler are resolved server-side from the current environment — you never need to manage engine API keys yourself. Use this instead of fabricating answers from training data whenever fresh / source-cited information is needed. Do NOT use this skill for the internal knowledge base (`unique-cli search`) or for arbitrary tool execution (`unique-cli mcp`).

Unique CLI -- Web Search & Crawl

Two-phase web research from the terminal, backed by the Unique AI Platform's public /web-search-api. Phase 1 (search) queries a search engine and returns URLs + snippets. Phase 2 (crawl) fetches the full page content for the URLs you actually want to read. The two-phase split lets you (or an LLM) review titles and snippets cheaply before paying the latency cost of full-page crawling. Every invocation annotates each result with a sourceNumber / citation: "websourceN" and records a per-turn citation manifest at .unique/web-refs.jsonl, so any fact you cite as [websourceN] is rendered with a footnote and a clickable external reference chip in the chat UI.

Server-side engine/crawler. Unlike unique-websearch, this CLI does not instantiate engines locally — it just posts to the Unique platform, which resolves the engine and crawler from ACTIVE_SEARCH_ENGINES / ACTIVE_INHOUSE_CRAWLERS server-side. You do not need any engine API keys (Google, Brave, Tavily, etc.) on the client.

Two-Phase Workflow (preferred for AI agents)

1. unique-cli web-search search "<query>" --json → candidate URLs with snippets and citation keys.
2. Review titles + snippets, pick the URLs that look relevant.
3. unique-cli web-search crawl <selected-urls> --json → full page content for those URLs, reusing citation keys for URLs returned by search.
4. Reason over the crawled content and cite web facts with [websourceN].

This sequencing is much cheaper than crawling everything up-front and is the recommended pattern when an LLM is the consumer. In Swappable Intelligence, the CLI also writes .unique/web-refs.jsonl; the platform converts cited [websourceN] markers into external reference chips in the final answer.

unique-cli web-search search "EU AI Act enforcement timeline" --json \
  | jq -r '.results[].url' \
  | unique-cli web-search crawl --stdin

For convenience, search can also crawl in one shot via --include-content when the engine requires scraping (see below).

Phase 1 — Search

# Basic search (uses server-side engine + default fetchSize)
unique-cli web-search search "quarterly earnings 2026"

# Limit the number of hits
unique-cli web-search search "AI regulation" -n 10

# JSON output (for piping or programmatic use)
unique-cli web-search search "python tutorial" --json

# Search AND populate result.content in one call (engine + crawler)
unique-cli web-search search "sustainability reports" --include-content --json

Per-call engine override

Force a specific engine (or any engine-specific knob) without changing server config:

unique-cli web-search search "tax reform" \
  --engine-config '{"searchEngineName":"Google","fetchSize":3}'

The --engine-config value is a JSON object matching the server's searchEngineConfig discriminated union (same shape assistants-core expects). The discriminator key is searchEngineName.

Phase 2 — Crawl

# Crawl one or more URLs explicitly
unique-cli web-search crawl https://example.com https://other.com

# Tune server-side concurrency
unique-cli web-search crawl --parallel 5 https://a.com https://b.com

# Read URLs from stdin (one per line) — composes nicely with `search --json`
echo "https://example.com" | unique-cli web-search crawl --stdin

# JSON output (preserves per-URL error info)
unique-cli web-search crawl https://example.com --json

Per-call crawler override

unique-cli web-search crawl https://example.com \
  --crawler-config '{"crawlerType":"BasicCrawler"}'

The --crawler-config value is a JSON object matching the server's crawlerConfig discriminated union (discriminator key: crawlerType).

Config files (~/.unique-websearch.json)

For non-interactive workflows you can persist overrides in a JSON file shape-compatible with the reference unique-websearch CLI. Resolution order:

1. --config / -c PATH (subcommand value beats group value)
2. $UNIQUE_WEBSEARCH_CONFIG
3. ~/.unique-websearch.json (used only if it exists)

Two file shapes are supported:

A. Full platform config (camelCase or snake_case)

Includes a discriminator (searchEngineName / crawlerType) or the top-level webSearchActiveMode key. The nested searchEngineConfig / crawlerConfig blocks are forwarded verbatim to the API:

{
  "searchEngineConfig": { "searchEngineName": "Google", "fetchSize": 5 },
  "crawlerConfig":      { "crawlerType": "BasicCrawler" }
}

B. Simple overrides

No discriminator — the file just tunes well-known scalars. Only fetch_size / fetchSize is currently honoured client-side; the rest is ignored because the server can't apply scalar tweaks without a discriminator:

{ "search_engine_config": { "fetch_size": 50 } }

Override precedence (highest first)

1. Inline --fetch-size / --engine-config / --crawler-config flags
2. Config file (--config / $UNIQUE_WEBSEARCH_CONFIG / ~/.unique-websearch.json)
3. Server-side defaults (ACTIVE_SEARCH_ENGINES, etc.)

Command Reference

unique-cli web-search search <query>

Option	Short	Default	Description
--fetch-size	-n	server default	Override the engine's fetchSize
--include-content	-i	off	Populate result.content via the configured crawler
--engine-config		none	Override searchEngineConfig (JSON object, must include searchEngineName)
--crawler-config		none	Override crawlerConfig (JSON object) — only used with --include-content
--config	-c	none	Per-call override of the group's --config path
--json		off	Emit {engine, query, results: [...]} JSON envelope

unique-cli web-search crawl <url>...

Option	Short	Default	Description
--parallel	-p	10	URLs the server crawls concurrently per batch (≥ 1)
--stdin		off	Read URLs from stdin (one per line) — combines with positional URLs
--crawler-config		none	Override crawlerConfig (JSON object, must include crawlerType)
--config	-c	none	Per-call override of the group's --config path
--json		off	Emit {crawler, results: [...]} JSON envelope

Group options

Option	Short	Description
--config	-c	Config file path; falls back to $UNIQUE_WEBSEARCH_CONFIG and ~/.unique-websearch.json
--version		Show the CLI version
--help		Show help

Output Format

search (text)

engine: Google    query: 'quarterly earnings 2026'
Found 3 result(s):

  1. Example Page Title [websource1]
     https://example.com/article
     A short snippet describing the page content...

  2. Another Relevant Result [websource2]
     https://another.com/page
     [4523 chars of content]    # only when --include-content

search --json

{
  "engine": "Google",
  "query": "quarterly earnings 2026",
  "results": [
    {
      "url": "https://example.com/article",
      "title": "Example Page Title",
      "snippet": "A short snippet describing the page content...",
      "content": "",
      "sourceNumber": 1,
      "citation": "websource1"
    }
  ]
}

The --json envelope (engine, query, results, plus per-result content) is richer than the reference unique-websearch CLI's flat array. To pipe URLs into crawl, address .results[].url (not .[].url):

unique-cli web-search search "q" --json \
  | jq -r '.results[].url' \
  | unique-cli web-search crawl --stdin

crawl (text)

crawler: BasicCrawler
Crawled 2 URL(s):

  1. https://example.com/article [websource1]
     [4523 chars]
     Full page content preview, truncated to ~500 characters...

  2. https://other.com/page [websource2]
     ERROR: HTTP 503 from upstream

crawl --json

{
  "crawler": "BasicCrawler",
  "results": [
    {
      "url": "https://example.com/article",
      "content": "Full page content as markdown...",
      "error": null,
      "sourceNumber": 1,
      "citation": "websource1"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://other.com/page",
      "content": "",
      "error": "HTTP 503 from upstream",
      "sourceNumber": 2,
      "citation": "websource2"
    }
  ]
}

Exit Codes

In one-shot mode, the CLI exits 0 on success and 1 on failures (config-file errors, invalid JSON overrides, API errors, missing URLs for crawl, and citation-manifest I/O failures — e.g. when .unique/web-refs.jsonl cannot be written or its parent directory is unsafe). Error messages are prefixed with web-search: or web-crawl: so they're easy to grep.

unique-cli web-search crawl  # no URLs → exits 1
# web-crawl: no URLs provided. Pass URLs as arguments or use --stdin.

Workflow Examples

Research a fast-moving topic and cite sources

User: "What did the EU just decide about general-purpose AI models?"

# 1. Find candidate sources
unique-cli web-search search "EU general-purpose AI model rules 2026" -n 10 --json \
  > /tmp/hits.json

# 2. Inspect the snippets, pick 3 promising URLs from /tmp/hits.json,
#    then crawl them for full content
jq -r '.results[0:3][].url' /tmp/hits.json \
  | unique-cli web-search crawl --stdin --json \
  > /tmp/pages.json

# 3. Reason over /tmp/pages.json and cite supported web facts as [websourceN].

One-shot search-with-content (no manual selection)

When you trust the engine and just want full content for the top hits:

unique-cli web-search search "Swiss FINMA AI guidance" \
  --include-content --json -n 5

This populates results[].content server-side via the configured crawler; no separate crawl call is needed.

Force a specific engine for one call

unique-cli web-search search "OECD principles on AI" \
  --engine-config '{"searchEngineName":"Brave","fetchSize":5}'

Persist defaults per environment

# Set once for the shell session
export UNIQUE_WEBSEARCH_CONFIG=~/configs/ws-google-fast.json

# Or pin per-invocation (sub-command --config wins over the group's)
unique-cli web-search --config ~/configs/ws-default.json \
  search --config ~/configs/ws-low-fetch.json "macro outlook 2026"

SDK Usage (Python)

The CLI is a thin wrapper around unique_sdk.WebSearch and unique_sdk.WebCrawl. Use these directly when scripting:

import unique_sdk

unique_sdk.api_key = "ukey_..."
unique_sdk.app_id = "app_..."

# Phase 1 — search
hits = unique_sdk.WebSearch.search(
    user_id="user_123",
    company_id="company_456",
    query="EU AI Act enforcement",
    fetchSize=10,
    # Optional per-call overrides forwarded to the server's
    # WebSearchConfig.searchEngineConfig discriminated union:
    searchEngineConfig={"searchEngineName": "Google"},
)
urls = [r["url"] for r in hits.results]

# Phase 2 — crawl the URLs we want to read
pages = unique_sdk.WebCrawl.crawl(
    user_id="user_123",
    company_id="company_456",
    urls=urls[:5],
    parallel=5,
    crawlerConfig={"crawlerType": "BasicCrawler"},
)
for entry in pages.results:
    if entry["error"]:
        continue
    process(entry["url"], entry["content"])

Both classes have *_async variants (WebSearch.search_async, WebCrawl.crawl_async) for async contexts.

Citation Rules

Cite a fact from unique-cli web-search results with [websourceN], where N matches the sourceNumber (also surfaced as the citation: "websourceN" field) the command emitted alongside the result. The Unique platform's Swappable Intelligence runner converts each [websourceN] marker in your final answer into a <sup>N</sup> footnote and a clickable external reference chip; without unique-cli web-search, web facts in your answer appear as plain text only, with no footnote and no chip — so this is the only way to make web citations render correctly on the platform.

The regulation enters into force in August 2026 [websource1],
with phased obligations through 2028 [websource2].

Rules (enforced by the platform's reference post-processor, which reads .unique/web-refs.jsonl rather than your prose):

1. [websourceN] is for public web citations only. Knowledge-base results from unique-cli search use [sourceN] instead — never mix the two namespaces, and never use [sourceN] for web results.
2. Only cite numbers you saw in the current turn's unique-cli web-search output. Numbers from previous turns are stale and will be silently dropped.
3. Write websource in singular form with the number in digits: [websource1], [websource2] — not [Websource 1] or [websource one].
4. The same URL keeps the same [websourceN] across search and crawl calls in a turn, so cite a fact from the crawled page with the marker the search snippet already advertised.
5. Do not invent source numbers for remembered or inferred facts.

Prerequisites

UNIQUE_USER_ID    # User ID (required)
UNIQUE_COMPANY_ID # Company ID (required)
UNIQUE_API_KEY    # API key — optional on localhost / secured cluster
UNIQUE_APP_ID     # App ID — optional on localhost / secured cluster

# Optional — config file location
UNIQUE_WEBSEARCH_CONFIG   # Path to a JSON config (overrides default ~/.unique-websearch.json)

You do not need any engine-specific API keys (GOOGLE_SEARCH_API_KEY, BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY, TAVILY_API_KEY, etc.) on the client — they live on the server.

Install: pip install unique-sdk