Search Providers

Pick a web-search backend (DuckDuckGo, Tavily, Serper) for your agent — or plug in your own

Pick a web-search backend (DuckDuckGo, Tavily, Serper) for your agent — or plug in your own.

from praisonaiagents import Agent

agent = Agent(
    name="Researcher",
    instructions="Search the web and summarise findings.",
    web=True,
)
agent.start("Latest news on renewable energy")

The user enables web=True; PraisonAI routes searches through DuckDuckGo, Tavily, Serper, or a custom provider.

How It Works

Quick Start

1. Simple Usage

   Give your agent web search with the default DuckDuckGo provider:

   from praisonaiagents import Agent
   
   agent = Agent(
       name="Researcher",
       instructions="Search the web and summarise findings.",
       web=True,
   )
   agent.start("Latest news on renewable energy")
   
2. Switch providers via config

   Select Tavily or Serper from the CLI or bot config:

   praisonai bot run telegram --web-search --web-provider tavily
   

   from praisonaiagents import Agent
   
   agent = Agent(
       name="Researcher",
       instructions="Use Tavily for deep web search.",
       web=True,
   )
   # Set WEB_SEARCH_PROVIDER=tavily in the environment, or pass via bot YAML
   
3. Register a custom search provider

   Distribute a custom provider as a pip plugin:

   # pyproject.toml
   [project.entry-points."praisonai.tools.search"]
   my-search = "my_pkg.tools:MySearchTool"
   

   from praisonai.cli.features._search_registry import SearchProviderRegistry
   
   registry = SearchProviderRegistry.default()
   tool_cls = registry.resolve("my-search")
   tool = tool_cls()
   

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Built-in Providers

Provider	API key needed?	Free tier	Best for
duckduckgo	No	Yes	Default, no setup, general queries
tavily	Yes (TAVILY_API_KEY)	Limited	Research-grade results, citations
serper	Yes (SERPER_API_KEY)	Limited	Google SERP-style results

Entry-point group: praisonai.tools.search

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Which Provider Should I Pick?

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Best Practices

Store API keys in the environment

Set TAVILY_API_KEY or SERPER_API_KEY in your shell or deployment secrets — never hard-code keys in agent instructions.

export TAVILY_API_KEY=tvly-...
praisonai bot run telegram --web-search --web-provider tavily

Fall back to DuckDuckGo

The registry falls back to duckduckgo when an unknown provider name is requested — useful for resilient bot configs.

Cache repeated queries

For high-volume agents, cache search results in Redis or session memory to avoid rate limits on paid providers.

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Related

Tool Search

Progressive disclosure when agents have many MCP tools

Endpoint Provider Registry

Plug custom endpoint types into serve / discovery