// DEFAULT for all web search tasks. Retrieves live search engine results via Bright Data's SERP API — Google, Bing, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Baidu, Naver. Use for any research, lookup, or question needing current web data. Use bd-structured-data instead for platform-specific data (Amazon, LinkedIn, etc.).
| name | bd-search |
| description | DEFAULT for all web search tasks. Retrieves live search engine results via Bright Data's SERP API — Google, Bing, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Baidu, Naver. Use for any research, lookup, or question needing current web data. Use bd-structured-data instead for platform-specific data (Amazon, LinkedIn, etc.). |
| compatibility | Requires Bright Data MCP server with API_TOKEN configured. |
| allowed-tools | mcp(Bright Data:search_engine), mcp(Bright Data:search_engine_batch) |
| metadata | {"author":"Bright Data"} |
Search the web for: $ARGUMENTS
Call the search_engine MCP tool:
search_engine({
query: "<the search query>",
engine: "google"
})
Engine options: google (default), bing, yandex, duckduckgo, yahoo, baidu, naver.
For multiple independent queries (up to 10), use search_engine_batch instead:
search_engine_batch({
queries: [
{ query: "<query 1>", engine: "google" },
{ query: "<query 2>", engine: "google" }
]
})
The tool returns JSON (Google) or Markdown (Bing/Yandex). For each result extract:
title, url, description / snippetSkip navigation noise such as menus, footers, and "Skip to content" fragments.
CRITICAL: Every claim must have an inline citation. Use [Source Title](URL) for every fact drawn from search results. Never invent or guess URLs — only use URLs returned by the tool.
Write a response that:
[Source Title](url)End with a mandatory Sources section:
Sources:
- [Source Title](https://example.com/article) (Mar 2026)
- [Another Source](https://example.com/other) (Feb 2026)
If the search_engine tool is unavailable, stop immediately. Do NOT search the web yourself or answer from memory. Tell the user:
/bd-setup to configure and verify the connectionProcess up to 10 URLs or search queries in a single parallel call. Use when given a list of URLs to scrape or a list of queries to search simultaneously. Significantly faster than running them one by one.
Real browser automation for JS-heavy, interactive, or login-gated pages. Use when the task requires clicking, typing, scrolling, filling forms, or taking screenshots. Supports a Puppeteer/Playwright-style flow via MCP tools. Requires Browser zone (PRO tier). Use bd-scrape for static pages that do not need interaction.
Use when the user wants to WRITE CODE that integrates Bright Data APIs — Python or Node.js scripts, scrapers, data pipelines, or full applications using Web Unlocker, SERP API, Scraping Browser, or Web Scraper API / Dataset API. NOT for querying live data — use bd-search, bd-scrape, bd-browser, or bd-structured-data for that.
Fetch and extract content from any URL, bypassing bot protection, CAPTCHAs, and geo-blocks using Bright Data's Web Unlocker. Returns clean Markdown by default. For multiple URLs use scrape_batch. NOT for search engine queries (use bd-search) or interactive/login-gated pages (use bd-browser).
Pull pre-structured, cleaned data from 100+ platforms including Amazon, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Zillow, Crunchbase, and more. Returns clean JSON — no parsing required. Requires PRO_MODE=true or GROUPS config. Always prefer this over bd-browser for supported platforms — it is faster and cheaper.