Web Search

8.3. Web Search — Searching the Internet for Information

Many backends, auto-selected based on available API keys

Up to 8 providers are supported: Firecrawl, Tavily, Exa, Parallel, SearXNG (self-hosted, no key required)… If no backend has been configured, web.backend is auto-detected from the API keys you already have; and if you have never chosen one, the system has a free tier that requires no registration — requests rotate across 5 providers (Exa, Parallel, Tavily, Firecrawl, Keenable), automatically moving to the next backend when rate-limited. This is the last resort and always yields to a configured backend with a real key.

FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-...

Firecrawl is the most complete backend

It is the only provider in the main group that supports search, scrape, and multi-page crawl in a single backend — which is why it is the default. With Firecrawl, web_search returns the page content, read and rendered as markdown, instead of just a short snippet like the other backends.

Queries support advanced search operators

site:, intitle:, filetype:, -term, "exact phrase" — these work with Firecrawl and most other backends.

Notes

• If you already have a Nous Portal subscription, enable the Tool Gateway to use web search through it — no separate API key to manage, and costs are billed against your subscription instead of per direct call.
• For data that must be accurate in cron workflows (chapter 17.4), always set a backend with a real key — do not let critical production jobs fall onto a free tier with no SLA guarantees.
• SearXNG is a good choice if privacy is an absolute priority (self-hosted, no rate limits), but it can only do search — you still need another backend for web_extract.