| 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.