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

Clawdbot ships two lightweight web tools:

• web_search — Search the web via Perplexity Search API (recommended) 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.
  • Perplexity (recommended): returns structured results (title, URL, snippet) for fast research.
  • Brave: returns structured results (title, URL, snippet) with free tier available.
• 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).

Choosing a search provider

Provider	Pros	Cons	API Key
Perplexity (recommended)	Fast, structured results, high-quality results	Requires Perplexity API access	PERPLEXITY_API_KEY
Brave	Structured results, free tier available	Traditional search results	BRAVE_API_KEY

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

Set the provider in config:

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

Example: switch to Perplexity Search:

{
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        provider: "perplexity",
        perplexity: {
          apiKey: "pplx-..."
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Getting a Brave API key

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 clawdbot 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 set the key (recommended)

Recommended: run clawdbot configure --section web. It stores the key in ~/.clawdbot/clawdbot.json under tools.web.search.apiKey.

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

Using Perplexity Search

Perplexity Search API returns structured search results (title, URL, snippet) for fast research. It's the recommended provider for web search.

Getting a Perplexity API key

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

Setting up Perplexity search

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

Environment alternative: set PERPLEXITY_API_KEY in the Gateway environment. For a gateway install, put it in ~/.clawdbot/.env.

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

• query (required)
• count (1–10; default from config)
• country (optional): 2-letter country code for region-specific results (e.g., "DE", "US", "ALL"). If omitted, Brave chooses its default region.
• search_lang (optional): ISO language code for search results (e.g., "de", "en", "fr")
• ui_lang (optional): ISO language code for UI elements
• freshness (optional, Brave only): filter by discovery time (pd, pw, pm, py, or YYYY-MM-DDtoYYYY-MM-DD)

Examples:

// German-specific search
await web_search({
  query: "TV online schauen",
  count: 10,
  country: "DE",
  search_lang: "de"
});

// French search with French UI
await web_search({
  query: "actualités",
  country: "FR",
  search_lang: "fr",
  ui_lang: "fr"
});

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

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.