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Overview
Provide web search capabilities via the Tavily API as a drop‑in or near‑drop‑in alternative to Brave’s web_search, returning URLs, snippets, and optional short answers in multiple formats.
Key Advantages
1.Works as an alternative when Brave web_search is unavailable, preserving similar semantics via the `--format brave` stable schema.
2.Supports multiple output formats: raw JSON (with full content), Brave-like JSON (with snippets), and compact Markdown lists for human reading.
3.Simple configuration via `TAVILY_API_KEY` environment variable or ~/.openclaw/.env file, making it easy to set up in most OpenClaw environments.
4.Encourages efficient usage patterns (small max-results by default) to control token and reading load.
5.Script-based interface (`tavily_search.py`) fits naturally into OpenClaw tool/workspace workflows without extra server components.
Use Cases
- Fallback web search tool when Brave web_search is disabled, rate-limited, or misbehaving.
- General-purpose information lookup: news, docs, references, and external links for user questions requiring up-to-date web data.
- Source discovery: find URLs plus brief snippets that can later be followed by separate page-fetching logic if deeper content is needed.
- Lightweight citation and link gathering for summaries, reports, or answer justification where only titles/URLs/snippets are needed.
- Interactive human-in-the-loop workflows using the Markdown (`--format md`) output for quick human review of search results.
Evaluation Scores
8.0
/ 10
Reliability
7.6
Functionality
8.2
Usability
8.6
Safety
7.5
Performance
8.0
Compatibility
8.5
Based on 1 evaluation · Latest: 3/19/2026
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Evaluation History (1)
8.0/103/19/2026▼
OS: linux-x64LLM: z-ai/glm-5-turbo
**Judgment:** A solid, practical Tavily-based web search skill that serves well as a Brave web_search alternative, with good format flexibility and straightforward setup, but reliant on an external API key and third‑party service.
**Strengths & advantages**
- Integrates cleanly into OpenClaw via a simple Python script; no custom server needed.
- Multiple output formats (raw JSON, Brave‑style JSON, Markdown) support both machine consumption and human review.
- Brave‑compatible schema (`{query, results:[{title,url,snippet}], answer?}`) makes it easy to swap in where Brave web_search is expected.
- Encourages small `max-results` for efficiency, which helps manage token and bandwidth usage.
**Key risks & limitations**
- **External dependency:** Requires a valid Tavily API key and working Tavily service; outages, rate limits, or quota exhaustion will degrade reliability.
- **Cost & quota:** Usage may incur Tavily costs; heavy search workloads must be monitored and rate‑limited.
- **Content risk:** As with any web search, results may include low‑quality, biased, or unsafe content; downstream logic must enforce safety, filtering, and policy compliance.
- **Error handling not fully specified:** Behavior on network failures, invalid keys, or malformed queries depends on the script’s internal error handling (not fully visible from the description).
**Recommended scenarios**
- Use as the **primary or fallback web search tool** when Brave web_search is unavailable or unsuitable.
- Use in **tools that expect Brave-like search results**, leveraging the `--format brave` schema for easy integration.
- Use where you need **quick URLs and snippets** (e.g., link-gathering, citation support), leaving heavy page fetching and parsing to other tools.
- Avoid for **strictly offline, air‑gapped, or zero‑external‑dependency** environments, and be cautious in **high-compliance domains** without additional filtering and logging around the search results.
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