Web Search

Real-time web search with citations

Overview

Enable your AI to search the web in real-time and provide answers with inline citations. The tool supports multiple queries per request for comprehensive research.

Quick Start

Enable web search in chat.config.ts:

ai: {
  tools: {
    webSearch: {
      enabled: true, // Requires the selected search tool’s credentials
    },
  },
}

Environment Variables

Select a search tool when creating the app:

bunx @chat-js/cli create my-app --search-tool tavily-search
# Or: --search-tool firecrawl-search

Set TAVILY_API_KEY for Tavily or FIRECRAWL_API_KEY for Firecrawl in .env.local. The selected tool is used by both chat and deep research. Keys do not select the implementation automatically.

Providers

Tavily

Default provider with search-specific optimizations:

• Topics: general or news (news limits to last 7 days)
• Search depth: basic or advanced
• Domain filtering: Exclude specific domains from results

Firecrawl

Alternative provider focused on content quality. Returns clean markdown extracted from pages.

Features

Multi-Query Search

The tool accepts up to 2 queries per request, executed in parallel:

{
  search_queries: [
    { query: "latest AI developments 2024", maxResults: 5 },
    { query: "machine learning trends", maxResults: 5 },
  ];
}

Results are automatically deduplicated by domain and URL.

Inline Citations

Search results are displayed as collapsible source cards. The AI is instructed to cite sources inline when using retrieved information.

Progress Indicators

While searching, the UI shows:

• Search status (running/completed)
• Query text being executed
• Number of sources found

Tool Output

Returns search results grouped by query:

{
  searches: [
    {
      query: { query: "...", maxResults: 5 },
      results: [{ url: "...", title: "...", content: "..." }],
    },
  ];
}

UI States

Customization

Tool Definition

The selected implementation lives in tools/chatjs/<id>/tool.ts. Edit its typed schema, description, and execution options there. Shared progress and source card events are handled by tools/platform/search-presentation.ts.

Change the selected tool

Keep any custom edits, then remove the previous search tool directory (for example, tools/chatjs/tavily-search) and install the replacement:

bunx @chat-js/cli add firecrawl-search

Sync requires exactly one installed search selection when search is used. It generates the registration indexes in tools/chatjs/tools.ts and ui.ts, plus search-config.ts for credentials. Do not edit generated files. An unused native package can be removed after checking that no other tool uses it. Firecrawl may also be needed by URL retrieval.

URL Retrieval

A separate retrieveUrl tool is available for fetching structured content from specific URLs (as opposed to searching the web). This tool uses Firecrawl to extract clean markdown from any webpage.

Enable in chat.config.ts:

ai: {
  tools: {
    urlRetrieval: {
      enabled: true, // Requires FIRECRAWL_API_KEY
    },
  },
}

The tool extracts:

• Page title and description
• Clean markdown content
• Source URL and language metadata

Use web search for discovery and URL retrieval for extracting content from known URLs.

External search tools

Pass an external registry item URL to --search-tool. The item exports a standard AI SDK tool and declares slot: "webSearch". It owns its schema, output, credentials, and optional renderer. The multi-query schema and progress cards above describe the built-in items, not requirements for external search tools.

Chat and deep research both expose the selected tool to their models. See Authoring tools for metadata and renderer registration.