Skip to content

web-search

USE FOR web search. Returns ranked results with snippets, URLs, thumbnails. Supports freshness filters, SafeSearch, Goggles for custom ranking, pagination. Primary search endpoint.

4,664
installs
0 up / 0 down, score 0.00
votes
191
repo stars
Updated
1 month ago
In the catalog since
1 Oct 2026
From
brave/brave-search-skills
Get it through your agent npx skills add brave/brave-search-skills@web-search

Skill instructions

Rendered from the published SKILL.md, 318 lines.

Web Search

Requires API Key: Get one at https://api.search.brave.com

Plan: Included in the Search plan. See https://api-dashboard.search.brave.com/app/subscriptions/subscribe

Quick Start (cURL)

Basic Search

curl -s "https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search?q=python+web+frameworks" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "X-Subscription-Token: ${BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY}"

With Parameters

curl -s "https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "X-Subscription-Token: ${BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY}" \
  -G \
  --data-urlencode "q=rust programming tutorials" \
  --data-urlencode "country=US" \
  --data-urlencode "search_lang=en" \
  --data-urlencode "count=10" \
  --data-urlencode "safesearch=moderate" \
  --data-urlencode "freshness=pm"

Endpoint

GET https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search
POST https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search

Note: Both GET and POST methods are supported. POST is useful for long queries or complex Goggles.

Authentication: X-Subscription-Token: <API_KEY> header

Optional Headers:

  • Accept-Encoding: gzip — Enable gzip compression

When to Use Web Search

Feature Web Search (this) LLM Context (llm-context) Answers (answers)
Output Structured results (links, snippets, metadata) Pre-extracted page content for LLMs End-to-end AI answers with citations
Result types Web, news, videos, discussions, FAQ, infobox, locations, rich Extracted text chunks, tables, code Synthesized answer + source list
Unique features Goggles, structured data (schemas), rich callbacks Token budget control, threshold modes Multi-iteration search, streaming, OpenAI SDK compatible
Speed Fast (~0.5-1s) Fast (<1s) Slower (~30-180s)
Best for Search UIs, data extraction, custom ranking RAG pipelines, AI agents, grounding Chat interfaces, thorough research

Parameters

Parameter Type Required Default Description
q string Yes - Search query (1-400 chars, max 50 words)
country string No US Search country (2-letter country code or ALL)
search_lang string No en Language preference (2+ char language code)
ui_lang string No en-US UI language (e.g., "en-US")
count int No 20 Max results per page (1-20)
offset int No 0 Page offset for pagination (0-9)
safesearch string No moderate Adult content filter (off/moderate/strict)
freshness string No - Time filter (pd/pw/pm/py or date range)
text_decorations bool No true Include highlight markers
spellcheck bool No true Auto-correct query
result_filter string No - Filter result types (comma-separated)
goggles string No - Custom ranking filter (URL or inline)
extra_snippets bool No - Get up to 5 extra snippets per result
operators bool No true Apply search operators
units string No - Measurement units (metric/imperial)
enable_rich_callback bool No false Enable rich 3rd party data callback
include_fetch_metadata bool No false Include fetched_content_timestamp on results

Freshness Values

Value Description
pd Past day (24 hours)
pw Past week (7 days)
pm Past month (31 days)
py Past year (365 days)
YYYY-MM-DDtoYYYY-MM-DD Custom date range

Result Filter Values

Filter types: discussions, faq, infobox, news, query, videos, web, locations

# Only web and video results
curl "...&result_filter=web,videos"

Location Headers (Optional)

For location-aware results, add these headers. Lat/Long is sufficient when coordinates are known — the other headers are only needed as a fallback when coordinates are unavailable.

Header Type Description
X-Loc-Lat float User latitude (-90.0 to 90.0)
X-Loc-Long float User longitude (-180.0 to 180.0)
X-Loc-Timezone string IANA timezone (e.g., "America/San_Francisco")
X-Loc-City string City name
X-Loc-State string State/region code (ISO 3166-2)
X-Loc-State-Name string State/region full name (e.g., "California")
X-Loc-Country string 2-letter country code
X-Loc-Postal-Code string Postal code (e.g., "94105")

Priority: X-Loc-Lat + X-Loc-Long take precedence. When provided, downstream services resolve the location directly from coordinates and the text-based headers (City, State, Country, Postal-Code) are not used for location resolution. Provide text-based headers only when you don't have coordinates. Sending both won't break anything — lat/long simply wins.

Response Format

Response Fields

Field Type Description
type string Always "search"
query.original string The original search query
query.altered string? Spellcheck-corrected query (if changed)
Show the whole skill (198 more lines)

| query.cleaned | string? | Cleaned/normalized query | | query.spellcheck_off | bool? | Whether spellcheck was disabled | | query.more_results_available | bool | Whether more pages exist | | query.show_strict_warning | bool? | True if strict safesearch blocked adult results | | query.search_operators | object? | Applied search operators (applied, cleaned_query, sites) | | web.type | string | Always "search" | | web.results[].title | string | Page title | | web.results[].url | string | Page URL | | web.results[].description | string? | Snippet/description text | | web.results[].age | string? | Human-readable age (e.g., "2 days ago") | | web.results[].language | string? | Content language code | | web.results[].meta_url | object | URL components (scheme, netloc, hostname, path) | | web.results[].thumbnail | object? | Thumbnail (src, original) | | web.results[].thumbnail.original | string? | Original full-size image URL | | web.results[].thumbnail.logo | bool? | Whether the thumbnail is a logo | | web.results[].profile | object? | Publisher identity (name, url, long_name, img) | | web.results[].page_age | string? | ISO datetime of publication (e.g., "2025-04-12T14:22:41") | | web.results[].extra_snippets | list[str]? | Up to 5 additional excerpts | | web.results[].deep_results | object? | Additional links (buttons, links) from the page | | web.results[].schemas | list? | Raw schema.org structured data | | web.results[].product | object? | Product info and reviews | | web.results[].recipe | object? | Recipe details (ingredients, time, ratings) | | web.results[].article | object? | Article metadata (author, publisher, date) | | web.results[].book | object? | Book info (author, ISBN, rating) | | web.results[].software | object? | Software product info | | web.results[].rating | object? | Aggregate ratings | | web.results[].faq | object? | FAQ found on the page | | web.results[].movie | object? | Movie info (directors, actors, genre) | | web.results[].video | object? | Video metadata (duration, views, creator) | | web.results[].location | object? | Location/restaurant details | | web.results[].qa | object? | Question/answer info | | web.results[].creative_work | object? | Creative work data | | web.results[].music_recording | object? | Music/song data | | web.results[].organization | object? | Organization info | | web.results[].review | object? | Review data | | web.results[].content_type | string? | Content type classification | | web.results[].fetched_content_timestamp | int? | Fetch timestamp (with include_fetch_metadata=true) | | web.mutated_by_goggles | bool | Whether results were re-ranked by Goggles | | web.family_friendly | bool | Whether results are family-friendly | | mixed | object? | Preferred display order (see Mixed Response below) | | discussions.results[] | array? | Forum discussion clusters | | discussions.results[].data.forum_name | string? | Forum/community name | | discussions.results[].data.num_answers | int? | Number of answers/replies | | discussions.results[].data.question | string? | Discussion question | | discussions.results[].data.top_comment | string? | Top-voted comment excerpt | | faq.results[] | array? | FAQ entries | | news.results[] | array? | News articles | | videos.results[] | array? | Video results | | infobox.results[] | array? | Knowledge graph entries | | locations.results[] | array? | Local POI results | | rich.hint.vertical | string? | Rich result type | | rich.hint.callback_key | string? | Callback key for rich data |

JSON Example

{
  "type": "search",
  "query": {
    "original": "python frameworks",
    "altered": "python web frameworks",
    "spellcheck_off": false,
    "more_results_available": true
  },
  "web": {
    "type": "search",
    "results": [
      {
        "title": "Top Python Web Frameworks",
        "url": "https://example.com/python-frameworks",
        "description": "A comprehensive guide to Python web frameworks...",
        "age": "2 days ago",
        "language": "en",
        "meta_url": {
          "scheme": "https",
          "netloc": "example.com",
          "hostname": "example.com",
          "path": "/python-frameworks"
        },
        "thumbnail": {
          "src": "https://...",
          "original": "https://original-image-url.com/img.jpg"
        },
        "extra_snippets": ["Additional excerpt 1...", "Additional excerpt 2..."]
      }
    ],
    "family_friendly": true
  },
  "mixed": {
    "type": "mixed",
    "main": [
      {"type": "web", "index": 0, "all": false},
      {"type": "web", "index": 1, "all": false},
      {"type": "videos", "all": true}
    ],
    "top": [],
    "side": []
  },
  "videos": { "...": "..." },
  "news": { "...": "..." },
  "rich": {
    "type": "rich",
    "hint": {
      "vertical": "weather",
      "callback_key": "<callback_key_hex>"
    }
  }
}

Mixed Response

The mixed object defines the preferred display order of results across types. It contains three arrays:

Array Purpose
main Primary result list (ordered sequence of results to display)
top Results to display above main results
side Results to display alongside main results (e.g., infobox)

Each entry is a ResultReference with type (e.g., "web", "videos"), index (into the corresponding result array), and all (true to include all results of that type at this position).

Search Operators

Operator Syntax Description
Site site:example.com Limit results to a specific domain
File extension ext:pdf Results with a specific file extension
File type filetype:pdf Results created in a specific file type
In title intitle:python Pages with term in the title
In body inbody:tutorial Pages with term in the body
In page inpage:guide Pages with term in title or body
Language lang:es Pages in a specific language (ISO 639-1)
Location loc:us Pages from a specific country (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2)
Include +term Force inclusion of a term
Exclude -term Exclude pages containing the term
Exact match "exact phrase" Match the exact phrase in order
AND term1 AND term2 Both terms required (uppercase)
OR / NOT term1 OR term2, NOT term Logical operators (uppercase)

Set operators=false to disable operator parsing.

Goggles (Custom Ranking) — Unique to Brave

Goggles let you re-rank search results — boost trusted sources, suppress SEO spam, or build focused search scopes.

Method Example
Hosted --data-urlencode "goggles=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/brave/goggles-quickstart/main/goggles/rust_programming.goggle"
Inline --data-urlencode 'goggles=$discard\n$site=example.com'

Hosted goggles must be on GitHub/GitLab, include ! name:, ! description:, ! author: headers, and be registered at https://search.brave.com/goggles/create. Inline rules need no registration.

Syntax: Rules start with $ + comma-separated options. Actions (pick one): discard, boost[=N], downrank[=N] — N is an integer 1–10. Site filter: site=DOMAIN. Example: $site=example.com,boost=3. Separate rules with \n (%0A).

Allow list: $discard\n$site=docs.python.org\n$site=developer.mozilla.org — Block list: $discard,site=pinterest.com\n$discard,site=quora.com

Resources: Discover · Syntax · Quickstart

Rich Data Enrichments

For queries about weather, stocks, sports, currency, etc., use the rich callback workflow:

# 1. Search with rich callback enabled
curl -s "https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search?q=weather+san+francisco&enable_rich_callback=true" \
  -H "X-Subscription-Token: ${BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY}"

# Response includes: "rich": {"hint": {"callback_key": "abc123...", "vertical": "weather"}}

# 2. Get rich data with the callback key
curl -s "https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/rich?callback_key=abc123..." \
  -H "X-Subscription-Token: ${BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY}"

Supported Rich Types: Calculator, Definitions, Unit Conversion, Unix Timestamp, Package Tracker, Stock, Currency, Cryptocurrency, Weather, American Football, Baseball, Basketball, Cricket, Football/Soccer, Ice Hockey, Web3, Translator

Rich Callback Endpoint

GET https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/rich
Parameter Type Required Description
callback_key string Yes Callback key from the web search rich.hint.callback_key field

Use Cases

  • General-purpose search integration: Richest result set (web, news, videos, discussions, FAQ, infobox, locations) in one call. For RAG/LLM grounding, prefer llm-context.
  • Structured data extraction: Products, recipes, ratings, articles via schemas and typed fields on results.
  • Custom search with Goggles: Unique to Brave. Boost/discard sites with inline rules or hosted Goggles for fully customized ranking.

Notes

  • Pagination: Use offset (0-9) with count to page through results
  • Count: Max 20 for web search; actual results may be less than requested