tavily-search

name	tavily-search
description	Search the web with LLM-optimized results via the Tavily CLI. This is the DEFAULT web search skill. Use it when the user wants to search the web, find articles, look up information, get recent news, discover sources, or says "search for", "find me", "look up", "what's the latest on", "find articles about", or needs current information from the internet. Returns relevant results with content snippets, relevance scores, and metadata — optimized for LLM consumption. Supports domain filtering, time ranges, and multiple search depths. Tavily has a free quota of 1,000 credits/month; if a request fails with a quota/credit/rate-limit error (e.g. 429 or insufficient credits), fall back to the brave-search skill.
allowed-tools	Bash(tvly *)

tavily search

Web search returning LLM-optimized results with content snippets and relevance scores.

Before running any command

If tvly is not found on PATH, install it first:

curl -fsSL https://cli.tavily.com/install.sh | bash && tvly login

Do not skip this step or fall back to other tools.

See tavily-cli for alternative install methods and auth options.

When to use

• You need to find information on any topic
• You don't have a specific URL yet
• First step in the workflow: search → extract → map → crawl → research

Quick start

# Basic search
tvly search "your query" --json

# Advanced search with more results
tvly search "quantum computing" --depth advanced --max-results 10 --json

# Recent news
tvly search "AI news" --time-range week --topic news --json

# Domain-filtered
tvly search "SEC filings" --include-domains sec.gov,reuters.com --json

# Include full page content in results
tvly search "react hooks tutorial" --include-raw-content --max-results 3 --json

Options

Option	Description
--depth	ultra-fast, fast, basic (default), advanced
--max-results	Max results, 0-20 (default: 5)
--topic	general (default), news, finance
--time-range	day, week, month, year
--start-date	Results after date (YYYY-MM-DD)
--end-date	Results before date (YYYY-MM-DD)
--include-domains	Comma-separated domains to include
--exclude-domains	Comma-separated domains to exclude
--country	Boost results from country
--include-answer	Include AI answer (basic or advanced)
--include-raw-content	Include full page content (markdown or text)
--include-images	Include image results
--include-image-descriptions	Include AI image descriptions
--chunks-per-source	Chunks per source (advanced/fast depth only)
-o, --output	Save output to file
--json	Structured JSON output

Search depth

Depth	Speed	Relevance	Best for
ultra-fast	Fastest	Lower	Real-time chat, autocomplete
fast	Fast	Good	Need chunks, latency matters
basic	Medium	High	General-purpose (default)
advanced	Slower	Highest	Precision, specific facts

Tips

• Keep queries under 400 characters — think search query, not prompt.
• Break complex queries into sub-queries for better results.
• Use --include-raw-content when you need full page text (saves a separate extract call).
• Use --include-domains to focus on trusted sources.
• Use --time-range for recent information.
• Read from stdin: echo "query" | tvly search - --json

See also

• tavily-extract — extract content from specific URLs
• tavily-research — comprehensive multi-source research