Web Search & Extract

VibeOS includes two model-callable web tools backed by multiple providers:

• web_search — search the web and return ranked results
• web_extract — fetch and extract readable content from one or more URLs

Both are configured through a single backend selection. Providers are chosen via vibeos tools or set directly in config.yaml.

Backends

Provider	Env Var	Search	Extract	Free tier
Firecrawl (default)	FIRECRAWL_API_KEY	✔	✔	500 credits/mo
SearXNG	SEARXNG_URL	✔	—	✔ Free (self-hosted)
Brave Search (free tier)	BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY	✔	—	2 000 queries/mo
DDGS (DuckDuckGo)	— (no key)	✔	—	✔ Free
Tavily	TAVILY_API_KEY	✔	✔	1 000 searches/mo
Exa	EXA_API_KEY	✔	✔	1 000 searches/mo
Yandex Search	YANDEX_SEARCH_API_KEY + YANDEX_FOLDER_ID	✔	—	Paid (Yandex Cloud)
Parallel	PARALLEL_API_KEY	✔	✔	Paid
xAI (Grok)	XAI_API_KEY or vibeos auth login xai-oauth	✔	—	Paid (SuperGrok or per-token)

Brave Search, DDGS, Yandex Search, and xAI are search-only — pair any of them with Firecrawl/Tavily/Exa/Parallel when you also need web_extract. DDGS uses the ddgs Python package under the hood; if it isn't already installed, run pip install ddgs (or let VibeOS lazy-install it on first use). xAI runs Grok's server-side web_search tool on the Responses API — results are LLM-generated rather than index-backed, so titles, descriptions, and URL choice are all model output (see the trust-model caveat below).

Per-capability split: you can use different providers for search and extract independently — for example SearXNG (free) for search and Firecrawl for extract. See Per-capability configuration below.

Nous Subscribers

If you have a paid Nous Portal subscription, web search and extract are available through the Tool Gateway via managed Firecrawl — no API key needed. New installs can run vibeos setup --portal to log in and turn on all gateway tools at once; existing installs can flip just web via vibeos tools.

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How web_extract handles long pages

Backends return raw page markdown, which can be huge (forum threads, docs sites, news articles with embedded comments). To keep your context window usable and your costs down, web_extract runs returned content through the web_extract auxiliary model before handing it to the agent. Behavior is purely size-driven:

Page size (characters)	What happens
Under 5 000	Returned as-is — no LLM call, full markdown reaches the agent
5 000 – 500 000	Single-pass summary via the web_extract auxiliary model, capped at ~5 000 chars of output
500 000 – 2 000 000	Chunked: split into 100 k-char chunks, summarize each in parallel, then synthesize a final summary (~5 000 chars)
Over 2 000 000	Refused with a hint to use a more focused source URL

The summary keeps quotes, code blocks, and key facts in their original formatting — it's a content compressor, not a paraphraser. If summarization fails or times out, VibeOS falls back to the first ~5 000 chars of raw content rather than a useless error.

Which model does the summarizing?

The web_extract auxiliary task. By default (auxiliary.web_extract.provider: "auto"), this is your main chat model — same provider, same model as vibeos model. That's fine for most setups, but on expensive reasoning models (Opus, MiniMax M2.7, etc.) every long-page extract adds meaningful cost.

To route extraction summaries to a cheap, fast model regardless of your main:

# ~/.vibeos/config.yaml
auxiliary:
  web_extract:
    provider: openrouter
    model: google/gemini-3-flash-preview
    timeout: 360       # seconds; raise if you hit summarization timeouts

Or pick interactively: vibeos model → Configure auxiliary models → web_extract.

See Auxiliary Models for the full reference and per-task override patterns.

When summarization gets in the way

If you specifically need raw, unsummarized page content — for example, you're scraping a structured page where the LLM summary would drop important fields — use browser_navigate + browser_snapshot instead. The browser tool returns the live accessibility tree without auxiliary-model rewriting (subject to its own 8 000-char snapshot cap on huge pages).

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Setup

Quick setup via vibeos tools

Run vibeos tools, navigate to Web Search & Extract, and pick a provider. The wizard prompts for the required URL or API key and writes it to your config.

vibeos tools

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Firecrawl (default)

Full-featured search and extract. Recommended for most users.

# ~/.vibeos/.env
FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-your-key-here

Get a key at firecrawl.dev. The free tier includes 500 credits/month.

Self-hosted Firecrawl: Point at your own instance instead of the cloud API:

# ~/.vibeos/.env
FIRECRAWL_API_URL=http://localhost:3002

When FIRECRAWL_API_URL is set, the API key is optional (disable server auth with USE_DB_AUTHENTICATION=false).

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SearXNG (free, self-hosted)

SearXNG is a privacy-respecting, open-source metasearch engine that aggregates results from 70+ search engines. No API key required — just point VibeOS at a running SearXNG instance.

SearXNG is search-only — web_extract requires a separate extract provider.

Option A — Self-host with Docker (recommended)

This gives you a private instance with no rate limits.

1. Create a working directory:

mkdir -p ~/searxng/searxng
cd ~/searxng

2. Write a docker-compose.yml:

# ~/searxng/docker-compose.yml
services:
  searxng:
    image: searxng/searxng:latest
    container_name: searxng
    ports:
      - "8888:8080"
    volumes:
      - ./searxng:/etc/searxng:rw
    environment:
      - SEARXNG_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8888/
    restart: unless-stopped

3. Start the container:

docker compose up -d

4. Enable the JSON API format:

SearXNG ships with JSON output disabled by default. Copy the generated config and enable it:

# Copy the auto-generated config out of the container
docker cp searxng:/etc/searxng/settings.yml ~/searxng/searxng/settings.yml

Open ~/searxng/searxng/settings.yml. If use_default_settings: true is present, the file only contains your overrides. All other settings are inherited from the built-in defaults. To enable JSON responses for VibeOS, add the following override:

search:
  formats:
    - html
    - json

Your settings.yml should look similar to:

# Read the documentation before extending the defaults:
# https://docs.searxng.org/admin/settings/

use_default_settings: true

server:
  secret_key: "abcdef12345678"
  image_proxy: true

search:
  formats:
    - html
    - json

5. Restart to apply:

docker cp ~/searxng/searxng/settings.yml searxng:/etc/searxng/settings.yml
docker restart searxng

6. Verify it works:

curl -s "http://localhost:8888/search?q=test&format=json" | python3 -c \
  "import sys,json; d=json.load(sys.stdin); print(f'{len(d[\"results\"])} results')"

You should see something like 10 results. If you get a 403 Forbidden, JSON format is still disabled — recheck step 4.

7. Configure VibeOS:

# ~/.vibeos/.env
SEARXNG_URL=http://localhost:8888

Then select SearXNG as the search backend in ~/.vibeos/config.yaml:

web:
  search_backend: "searxng"

Or set via vibeos tools → Web Search & Extract → SearXNG.

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Option B — Use a public instance

Public SearXNG instances are listed at searx.space. Filter by instances that have JSON format enabled (shown in the table).

# ~/.vibeos/.env
SEARXNG_URL=https://searx.example.com

Public instances

Public instances have rate limits, variable uptime, and may disable JSON format at any time. For production use, self-hosting is strongly recommended.

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Pair SearXNG with an extract provider

SearXNG handles search; you need a separate provider for web_extract. Use the per-capability keys:

# ~/.vibeos/config.yaml
web:
  search_backend: "searxng"
  extract_backend: "firecrawl"   # or tavily, exa, parallel

With this config, VibeOS uses SearXNG for all search queries and Firecrawl for URL extraction — combining free search with high-quality extraction.

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Tavily

AI-optimised search and extract with a generous free tier.

# ~/.vibeos/.env
TAVILY_API_KEY=tvly-your-key-here

Get a key at app.tavily.com. The free tier includes 1 000 searches/month.

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Exa

Neural search with semantic understanding. Good for research and finding conceptually related content.

# ~/.vibeos/.env
EXA_API_KEY=your-exa-key-here

Get a key at exa.ai. The free tier includes 1 000 searches/month.

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Yandex Search

Yandex Cloud Search API — strongest default for Russian / Cyrillic queries. Search-only; pair with Firecrawl/Tavily/Exa/Parallel for web_extract.

# ~/.vibeos/.env
YANDEX_SEARCH_API_KEY=your-search-api-key
YANDEX_FOLDER_ID=b1gxxxxxxxx  # same folder as YandexART if you already use it

Enable Search API on the folder and grant the service account search-api.executor (or editor). Then pick Yandex Search in vibeos tools, or:

# ~/.vibeos/config.yaml
web:
  search_backend: "yandex"
  extract_backend: "firecrawl"

Optional overrides: YANDEX_SEARCH_TYPE (RU default, also COM/TR/…), YANDEX_SEARCH_REGION (e.g. 225 Russia, 213 Moscow), YANDEX_SEARCH_FOLDER_ID if search should use a different folder than YANDEX_FOLDER_ID.

For multi-source cited briefs, load the bundled skill professional-research, or scaffold a workspace / apply backends with:

vibeos research preset research-pro --apply
vibeos research run --topic "…" --mode brief

Desktop: Settings → Research Pro. Full workflows: Professional research and Research daily briefing.

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Parallel

AI-native search and extraction with deep research capabilities.

# ~/.vibeos/.env
PARALLEL_API_KEY=your-parallel-key-here

Get access at parallel.ai.

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xAI (Grok)

Routes web_search through Grok's server-side web_search tool on the Responses API. Grok runs the actual searching and returns the top results as structured JSON.

Works with either credential path — no new env vars, no new setup wizard:

# ~/.vibeos/.env (env-var path)
XAI_API_KEY=sk-xai-your-key-here

or for SuperGrok subscribers:

vibeos auth login xai-oauth

Then select xAI as the search backend:

# ~/.vibeos/config.yaml
web:
  backend: "xai"

Optional knobs:

web:
  backend: "xai"
  xai:
    model: grok-build-0.1        # reasoning model required by web_search (default)
    allowed_domains:             # optional, max 5 — mutex with excluded_domains
      - arxiv.org
    excluded_domains:            # optional, max 5
      - example-spam.com
    timeout: 90                  # seconds (default)

Search-only — pair with Firecrawl / Tavily / Exa / Parallel if you also need web_extract. On 401 the provider performs a single forced OAuth-token refresh and retries (covers mid-window revocation and opaque tokens the proactive expiry check can't decode); env-var credentials skip the retry.

Trust model

Unlike index-backed providers (Brave, Tavily, Exa) which return verbatim search-engine results, xAI is an LLM choosing which URLs to surface and writing the titles and descriptions itself. The content of the query influences the output, so a maliciously crafted query (e.g. injected via untrusted upstream input the agent picked up) can in principle steer Grok into emitting attacker-chosen URLs. Treat returned URLs the same way you'd treat any model-generated link — validate before fetching, especially if the query came from untrusted input.

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Configuration

Single backend

Set one provider for all web capabilities:

# ~/.vibeos/config.yaml
web:
  backend: "searxng"   # firecrawl | searxng | brave-free | ddgs | tavily | exa | yandex | parallel | xai

Per-capability configuration

Use different providers for search vs extract. This lets you combine free search (SearXNG) with a paid extract provider, or vice versa:

# ~/.vibeos/config.yaml
web:
  search_backend: "searxng"     # used by web_search
  extract_backend: "firecrawl"  # used by web_extract

Russian / Cyrillic search (Yandex) with Firecrawl extract:

# ~/.vibeos/config.yaml
web:
  search_backend: "yandex"
  extract_backend: "firecrawl"

When per-capability keys are empty, both fall through to web.backend. When web.backend is also empty, the backend is auto-detected from whichever API key/URL is present.

Priority order (per capability):

1. web.search_backend / web.extract_backend (explicit per-capability)
2. web.backend (shared fallback)
3. Auto-detect from environment variables

Auto-detection

If no backend is explicitly configured, VibeOS picks the first available one based on which credentials are set:

Credential present	Auto-selected backend
FIRECRAWL_API_KEY or FIRECRAWL_API_URL	firecrawl
PARALLEL_API_KEY	parallel
TAVILY_API_KEY	tavily
EXA_API_KEY	exa
YANDEX_SEARCH_API_KEY + YANDEX_FOLDER_ID	yandex
SEARXNG_URL	searxng

xAI Web Search is not in the auto-detection chain — having XAI_API_KEY set (or being signed in via xAI Grok OAuth) does not automatically route web traffic through xAI, since those credentials are also used for inference / TTS / image gen and the user may want a different backend for web. Opt in explicitly with web.backend: "xai".

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Verify your setup

Run vibeos setup to see which web backend is detected:

✅ Web Search & Extract (searxng)

Or check via the CLI:

# Activate the venv and run the web tools module directly
source ~/.vibeos/vibeos-agent/.venv/bin/activate
python -m tools.web_tools

This prints the active backend and its status:

✅ Web backend: searxng
   Using SearXNG (search only): http://localhost:8888

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Troubleshooting

web_search returns {"success": false}

• Check SEARXNG_URL is reachable: curl -s "http://localhost:8888/search?q=test&format=json"
• If you get HTTP 403, JSON format is disabled — add json to the formats list in settings.yml and restart
• If you get a connection error, the container may not be running: docker ps | grep searxng

web_extract says "search-only backend"

SearXNG cannot extract URL content. Set web.extract_backend to a provider that supports extraction:

web:
  search_backend: "searxng"
  extract_backend: "firecrawl"  # or tavily / exa / parallel

SearXNG returns 0 results

Some public instances disable certain search engines or categories. Try:

• A different query
• A different public instance from searx.space
• Self-hosting your own instance for reliable results

Rate limited on a public instance

Switch to a self-hosted instance (see Option A above). With Docker, your own instance has no rate limits.

web_extract returns truncated content with a "summarization timed out" note

The auxiliary model didn't finish summarizing within the configured timeout. Either:

• Raise auxiliary.web_extract.timeout in config.yaml (default 360s on fresh installs, 30s if the key is missing)
• Switch the web_extract auxiliary task to a faster model (e.g. google/gemini-3-flash-preview) — see How web_extract handles long pages
• For pages where summarization is the wrong tool, use browser_navigate instead

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Optional skill: searxng-search

For agents that need to use SearXNG via curl directly (e.g. as a fallback when the web toolset isn't available), install the searxng-search optional skill:

vibeos skills install official/research/searxng-search

This adds a skill that teaches the agent how to:

• Call the SearXNG JSON API via curl or Python
• Filter by category (general, news, science, etc.)
• Handle pagination and error cases
• Fall back gracefully when SearXNG is unreachable