nanobot/docs/web-search.md

Web Search Providers

NanoBot supports multiple web search providers. Configure in ~/.nanobot/config.json under tools.web.search.

Provider	Key	Env var
brave (default)	apiKey	BRAVE_API_KEY
tavily	apiKey	TAVILY_API_KEY
searxng	baseUrl	SEARXNG_BASE_URL
duckduckgo	—	—

Each provider uses the same apiKey field — set the provider and key together. If no provider is specified but apiKey is given, Brave is assumed.

When credentials are missing and fallbackToDuckduckgo is true (the default), searches fall back to DuckDuckGo automatically.

Examples

Brave (default — just set the key):

{
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "search": {
        "apiKey": "BSA..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Tavily:

{
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "search": {
        "provider": "tavily",
        "apiKey": "tvly-..."
      }
    }
  }
}

SearXNG (self-hosted, no API key needed):

{
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "search": {
        "provider": "searxng",
        "baseUrl": "https://searx.example"
      }
    }
  }
}

DuckDuckGo (no credentials required):

{
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "search": {
        "provider": "duckduckgo"
      }
    }
  }
}

Options

Key	Type	Default	Description
provider	string	"brave"	Search backend
apiKey	string	""	API key for the selected provider
baseUrl	string	""	Base URL for SearXNG (appends /search)
maxResults	integer	5	Default results per search
fallbackToDuckduckgo	boolean	true	Fall back to DuckDuckGo when credentials are missing

Custom providers

Plugins can register additional providers at runtime via the dispatch dict:

async def my_search(query: str, n: int) -> str:
    ...

tool._provider_dispatch["my-engine"] = my_search