openclaw/docs/tools/web.md

summary	read_when
Web search + fetch tools (Perplexity Search API, Brave Search API)	You want to enable web_search or web_fetch You need Perplexity or Brave Search API key setup

Web tools

Moltbot ships two lightweight web tools:

• web_search — Search the web using Perplexity Search API or Brave Search API.
• web_fetch — HTTP fetch + readable extraction (HTML → markdown/text).

These are not browser automation. For JS-heavy sites or logins, use the Browser tool.

How it works

• web_search calls your configured provider and returns results.
• Results are cached by query for 15 minutes (configurable).
• web_fetch does a plain HTTP GET and extracts readable content (HTML → markdown/text). It does not execute JavaScript.
• web_fetch is enabled by default (unless explicitly disabled).

See Perplexity Search setup and Brave Search setup for provider-specific details.

Choosing a search provider

Provider	Pros	Cons	API Key
Perplexity Search API	Fast, structured results; domain, language, region, and freshness filters; content extraction options; free credits for Moltbot users	—	Requires Perplexity API key PERPLEXITY_API_KEY
Brave Search API	Fast, structured results; free tier available	Fewer filtering options	Requires Brave API key BRAVE_API_KEY

Set the provider in config:

{
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        provider: "perplexity"  // or "brave"
      }
    }
  }
}

Setting up web search

Use moltbot configure --section web to set up your API key and choose a provider.

Perplexity Search

1. Create a Perplexity account at https://www.perplexity.ai/settings/api
2. Generate an API key in the dashboard
3. Run moltbot configure --section web to store the key in config, or set PERPLEXITY_API_KEY in your environment.

Perplexity provides $5 in API credits on a monthly rolling basis to Perplexity Pro subscribers. Additionally, Perplexity provides complementary credits for Moltbot users.

See Perplexity Search API Docs for more details.

Brave Search

1. Create a Brave Search API account at https://brave.com/search/api/
2. In the dashboard, choose the Data for Search plan (not "Data for AI") and generate an API key.
3. Run moltbot configure --section web to store the key in config (recommended), or set BRAVE_API_KEY in your environment.

Brave provides a free tier plus paid plans; check the Brave API portal for the current limits and pricing.

Where to store the key

Via config (recommended): run moltbot configure --section web. It stores the key under tools.web.search.perplexity.apiKey or tools.web.search.apiKey.

Via environment: set PERPLEXITY_API_KEY or BRAVE_API_KEY in the Gateway process environment. For a gateway install, put it in ~/.clawdbot/.env (or your service environment). See Env vars.

Config examples

Perplexity Search:

{
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        enabled: true,
        provider: "perplexity",
        perplexity: {
          apiKey: "pplx-..."  // optional if PERPLEXITY_API_KEY is set
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Brave Search:

{
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        enabled: true,
        provider: "brave",
        apiKey: "BSA..."  // optional if BRAVE_API_KEY is set
      }
    }
  }
}

web_search

Search the web using your configured provider.

Requirements

• tools.web.search.enabled must not be false (default: enabled)
• API key for your chosen provider:
  • Brave: BRAVE_API_KEY or tools.web.search.apiKey
  • Perplexity: PERPLEXITY_API_KEY or tools.web.search.perplexity.apiKey

Config

{
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        enabled: true,
        apiKey: "BRAVE_API_KEY_HERE", // optional if BRAVE_API_KEY is set
        maxResults: 5,
        timeoutSeconds: 30,
        cacheTtlMinutes: 15
      }
    }
  }
}

Tool parameters

All parameters work for both Brave and Perplexity unless noted.

Parameter	Description
query	Search query (required)
count	Results to return (1-10, default: 5)
country	2-letter ISO country code (e.g., "US", "DE")
language	ISO 639-1 language code (e.g., "en", "de")
freshness	Time filter: day, week, month, or year
date_after	Results after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
date_before	Results before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
ui_lang	UI language code (Brave only)
domain_filter	Domain allowlist/denylist array (Perplexity only)
max_tokens	Total content budget, default 25000 (Perplexity only)
max_tokens_per_page	Per-page token limit, default 2048 (Perplexity only)

Examples:

// German-specific search
await web_search({
  query: "TV online schauen",
  country: "DE",
  language: "de"
});

// Recent results (past week)
await web_search({
  query: "TMBG interview",
  freshness: "week"
});

// Date range search
await web_search({
  query: "AI developments",
  date_after: "2024-01-01",
  date_before: "2024-06-30"
});

// Domain filtering (Perplexity only)
await web_search({
  query: "climate research",
  domain_filter: ["nature.com", "science.org", ".edu"]
});

// Exclude domains (Perplexity only)
await web_search({
  query: "product reviews",
  domain_filter: ["-reddit.com", "-pinterest.com"]
});

// More content extraction (Perplexity only)
await web_search({
  query: "detailed AI research",
  max_tokens: 50000,
  max_tokens_per_page: 4096
});

web_fetch

Fetch a URL and extract readable content.

Requirements

• tools.web.fetch.enabled must not be false (default: enabled)
• Optional Firecrawl fallback: set tools.web.fetch.firecrawl.apiKey or FIRECRAWL_API_KEY.

Config

{
  tools: {
    web: {
      fetch: {
        enabled: true,
        maxChars: 50000,
        timeoutSeconds: 30,
        cacheTtlMinutes: 15,
        maxRedirects: 3,
        userAgent: "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 14_7_2) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/122.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
        readability: true,
        firecrawl: {
          enabled: true,
          apiKey: "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY_HERE", // optional if FIRECRAWL_API_KEY is set
          baseUrl: "https://api.firecrawl.dev",
          onlyMainContent: true,
          maxAgeMs: 86400000, // ms (1 day)
          timeoutSeconds: 60
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Tool parameters

• url (required, http/https only)
• extractMode (markdown | text)
• maxChars (truncate long pages)

Notes:

• web_fetch uses Readability (main-content extraction) first, then Firecrawl (if configured). If both fail, the tool returns an error.
• Firecrawl requests use bot-circumvention mode and cache results by default.
• web_fetch sends a Chrome-like User-Agent and Accept-Language by default; override userAgent if needed.
• web_fetch blocks private/internal hostnames and re-checks redirects (limit with maxRedirects).
• web_fetch is best-effort extraction; some sites will need the browser tool.
• See Firecrawl for key setup and service details.
• Responses are cached (default 15 minutes) to reduce repeated fetches.
• If you use tool profiles/allowlists, add web_search/web_fetch or group:web.
• If the Brave key is missing, web_search returns a short setup hint with a docs link.