OpenClaw Web Search Skill: Give Your Agent Live Internet Access

A language model without web access is frozen in time. OpenClaw's web search skill breaks that barrier — your agent queries live search results and uses them to answer questions, generate reports, or trigger downstream actions. Here's the exact setup that works in early 2025.

Why Web Search Matters

The practical gap between a capable AI agent and a useful one is often access to current information. Stock prices, news, software documentation, job listings — all of it changes constantly. A web search skill closes that gap in a single config block.

Here's what the web search skill unlocks:

• Real-time research — agent answers questions using current data, not training data
• Monitoring workflows — search for brand mentions, competitor news, or pricing changes on a schedule
• Fact checking — verify model-generated claims against live sources before outputting

Supported Search Providers

OpenClaw supports four search backends. Each has different pricing, latency, and result quality characteristics.

• Brave Search — independent index, $3/1k queries, best default choice for most setups
• SerpAPI — Google results via API, $50/5k queries, highest result quality
• Bing Search — Azure Cognitive Search integration, $3/1k queries, good for enterprise setups
• Scraping fallback — no API key required, DuckDuckGo-based, slower and rate-limited by default

The scraping fallback works for low-volume testing but isn't suitable for production workflows. DuckDuckGo rate limits aggressive scraping and returns inconsistent result formatting.

Configuration

Add the web search skill to your OpenClaw skills config:

skills:
  web_search:
    enabled: true
    provider: brave  # brave | serpapi | bing | scraping
    api_key: ${BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY}
    results: 5
    safe_search: moderate
    site_filter: ""  # e.g. "site:github.com" to restrict domain
    language: en
    country: us
    cache_ttl: 3600  # seconds to cache identical queries

The cache_ttl parameter caches results from identical queries to reduce API costs. Set to 0 to disable caching for real-time workflows where freshness matters.

Search-Driven Workflows

The most common production use is a daily briefing workflow. This searches for a topic, summarises the results, and delivers them via a channel:

skills:
  morning_brief:
    trigger: cron(0 7 * * 1-5)
    actions:
      - skill: web_search
        query: "AI agent framework news this week"
        results: 5
      - skill: summarize
        input: "{{web_search.results}}"
        style: brief
      - channel: slack
        action: post_message
        channel: "#ai-updates"
        text: "{{summarize.output}}"

For monitoring workflows, use keyword-specific searches on a schedule and trigger alerts when new results appear that weren't in the previous run. OpenClaw's deduplication feature tracks seen result URLs across runs.

Common Mistakes

Disabling cache on low-volatility queries wastes API credits. If you're searching for evergreen topics, a 1-hour cache is almost always appropriate.

• Not setting a site_filter for domain-specific work — open web searches for niche topics return lots of irrelevant results. Narrow the scope with site_filter.
• Setting results too high — 10 results per query doubles the token cost when piped into a summarize skill. Start with 3-5 and increase only if needed.
• Missing API key errors in production — always test with the exact provider you'll use in production. The scraping fallback silently activates when an API key is missing or invalid.
• Not handling empty results — some queries return zero results. Build a fallback action for when web_search.results is empty to prevent downstream skill failures.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the web search skill require an API key?
It depends on the provider. SerpAPI, Bing, and Brave all require API keys. OpenClaw also supports a basic scraping fallback without a key, but it's not suitable for production use.

Which search provider works best with OpenClaw?
Brave Search is the most popular in the OpenClaw community as of early 2025 — good result quality, $3/1k queries pricing, and native API support.

Can I search specific sites with OpenClaw?
Yes. Add a site_filter to your search skill config to restrict results to specific domains. Works with any provider that supports site: operator queries.

How many results does the web search skill return?
Default is 5, configurable via the results parameter. Most providers support up to 10 results per call; higher counts cost more API credits.

Can the web search skill access paywalled content?
No. The skill retrieves publicly accessible content only. Paywalled articles return only the preview text exposed to crawlers.

Does web search work with local OpenClaw deployments?
Yes. As long as the host machine has internet access and valid API credentials are configured, the web search skill works identically on local and cloud deployments.