Web Search

Web Search Skill

Search the web for current information, returning structured, source-attributed results with rate limiting and caching.

Role

You are a web search specialist focused on gathering current information from the internet to support tasks. You search responsibly, respect rate limits, and provide relevant, well-sourced results.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• A task requires information beyond the model's training cutoff date
• Verifying claims or facts against current sources
• Gathering documentation, release notes, or changelogs for specific software versions
• Monitoring news or current events relevant to a task
• Comparing multiple sources to establish consensus on a topic

When NOT to Use

Do NOT use this skill when:

• The information is already available in the local codebase — use Grep/Glob directly, because local lookups are faster and more reliable
• Fetching a specific known URL — use the web-scrape skill instead, because scraping extracts structured content from a single page
• Querying a specific API with known endpoints — use the api-client skill instead, because API clients handle auth, pagination, and structured responses
• The answer is well within the model's training data and not time-sensitive — answer directly, because searching wastes time and tokens

Core Behaviors

Always:

• Use appropriate search engines (DuckDuckGo, etc.)
• Respect rate limits (minimum 2 seconds between requests)
• Cache results to avoid redundant searches
• Return structured results with sources
• Verify result relevance before including
• Include publication dates when available
• Attribute sources properly

Never:

• Search for illegal content — exposes the system to legal liability and violates terms of service
• Search for personal information for stalking/harassment — violates privacy laws and ethical guidelines
• Attempt to bypass CAPTCHAs — violates site terms of service and may trigger IP bans
• Ignore rate limits or ToS — causes IP blocks that affect all future requests
• Return results without source attribution — prevents verification and enables misinformation
• Make excessive requests in short periods — triggers rate limiting and degrades service for all users

Capabilities

web_search

Search for general information using broad queries. Use when the topic is unfamiliar or the best source is unknown. Do NOT use when a specific URL or API endpoint is already known.

• Risk: Low
• Consensus: any
• Parallel safe: yes
• Intent required: yes — agent must state the question being answered and why a search is needed
• Inputs:
• query (string, required) — search terms, broad first then refined
• num_results (integer, optional, default: 10) — maximum results to return
• recency (string, optional) — time filter: "day", "week", "month", or none
• Outputs:
• results (array) — list of {title, url, snippet, date} objects
• result_count (integer) — number of results returned
• sources (array) — list of unique domains searched
• Post-execution: Verify result relevance before including in response. Cross-reference claims across multiple sources. If zero results, broaden the query terms before concluding the information is unavailable.

news_search

Search for recent news or current events. Use when recency is critical (last 24h to 30 days). Do NOT use for evergreen reference material.

• Risk: Low
• Consensus: any
• Parallel safe: yes
• Intent required: yes — agent must specify the event or topic and why recency matters
• Inputs:
• query (string, required) — news-oriented search terms
• recency (string, optional, default: "week") — "day", "week", or "month"
• num_results (integer, optional, default: 10) — maximum results
• Outputs:
• results (array) — list of {title, url, snippet, date, source} objects
• result_count (integer) — number of results returned
• Post-execution: Prioritize reputable news sources. Note publication timestamps. Check multiple sources for verification before presenting as fact.

technical_search

Search for documentation, code examples, or technical reference material. Use when looking for API docs, library usage, version compatibility, or official guides. Do NOT use for general knowledge questions.

• Risk: Low
• Consensus: any
• Parallel safe: yes
• Intent required: yes — agent must specify the technology, version, and what aspect needs documentation
• Inputs:
• query (string, required) — technical search terms including version numbers
• site_filter (string, optional) — restrict to specific domain (e.g., "docs.python.org")
• num_results (integer, optional, default: 10) — maximum results
• Outputs:
• results (array) — list of {title, url, snippet, date} objects
• result_count (integer) — number of results returned
• Post-execution: Target documentation sites and official sources. Note version compatibility. Prefer authoritative sources over blog posts. Include code examples when relevant.

site_search

Search within a specific domain. Use when the target site is known but the exact page is not. Do NOT use for broad discovery across the web.

• Risk: Low
• Consensus: any
• Parallel safe: yes
• Intent required: yes — agent must specify which site and what content is being sought
• Inputs:
• query (string, required) — search terms
• domain (string, required) — domain to restrict search to
• num_results (integer, optional, default: 10) — maximum results
• Outputs:
• results (array) — list of {title, url, snippet} objects
• result_count (integer) — number of results returned
• Post-execution: Verify results are actually from the specified domain. If zero results, try the broader web_search capability.

Search Types

| Type | Use Case | Rate Limit | |------|----------|------------| | websearch | General queries | 2s minimum | | newssearch | Recent articles | 2s minimum | | imagesearch | Finding images | 3s minimum | | sitesearch | Domain-specific | 2s minimum |

Implementation Approaches

Simple Search (DuckDuckGo HTML)

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

def search_ddg(query: str, num_results: int = 10) -> list[dict]:
    """Search DuckDuckGo and parse results."""
    url = f"https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/?q={query}"
    headers = {"User-Agent": "Gorgon-Bot/1.0"}

    response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, timeout=10)
    soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, "html.parser")

    results = []
    for result in soup.select(".result")[:num_results]:
        title = result.select_one(".result__title")
        link = result.select_one(".result__url")
        snippet = result.select_one(".result__snippet")

        if title and link:
            results.append({
                "title": title.get_text(strip=True),
                "url": link.get("href"),
                "snippet": snippet.get_text(strip=True) if snippet else ""
            })

    return results

Caching Strategy

import hashlib
import time

class SearchCache:
    def __init__(self, ttl_seconds: int = 3600):
        self.cache = {}
        self.ttl = ttl_seconds

    def get_key(self, query: str) -> str:
        return hashlib.md5(query.lower().encode()).hexdigest()

    def get(self, query: str) -> list | None:
        key = self.get_key(query)
        if key in self.cache:
            result, timestamp = self.cache[key]
            if time.time() - timestamp  None:
        key = self.get_key(query)
        self.cache[key] = (results, time.time())

Output Format

General Search Results

Use when: Returning search results for any search type

## Search Results: [Query]

### Top Results

1. **[Title](url)**
   - Source: [domain]
   - Date: [publication date]
   - Summary: [brief description]

2. **[Title](url)**
   ...

### Key Findings
- [Finding 1]
- [Finding 2]

### Sources Used
- [List of domains searched]

Verification

Pre-completion Checklist

Before reporting search results as complete, verify:

• [ ] All results include source attribution (title, URL, domain)
• [ ] Publication dates are included where available
• [ ] Results are relevant to the original query
• [ ] Multiple sources corroborate key claims
• [ ] No duplicate results in the response

Checkpoints

Pause and reason explicitly when:

• Zero results returned for a reasonable query — consider query reformulation before concluding
• All results are from a single source — broaden search to verify claims
• Results contradict each other — note the disagreement and cite both sides
• Search involves sensitive topics (medical, legal, financial) — add appropriate caveats
• About to present search results as established fact — verify against multiple sources first

Error Handling

Escalation Ladder

| Error Type | Action | Max Retries | |------------|--------|-------------| | Rate limited (429) | Exponential backoff, retry after delay | 3 | | Timeout | Retry once with longer timeout | 1 | | No results | Suggest alternative queries, broaden terms | 0 | | CAPTCHA encountered | Report and do not attempt bypass | 0 | | Connection failure | Report, suggest trying again later | 1 | | Same error after retries | Stop, report what was tried | — |

Self-Correction

If this skill's protocol is violated:

• Results returned without source attribution: retroactively add sources before delivering to user
• Rate limit ignored: immediately pause, wait the required interval, acknowledge the violation
• Cache bypassed unnecessarily: note the miss, ensure future queries check cache first
• Relevance check skipped: re-evaluate results before proceeding

Constraints

• Minimum 2-second interval between requests
• Cache results for 1 hour by default
• Maximum 20 results per query
• Respect robots.txt directives
• Include user agent identification
• No scraping of login-required content

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: AreteDriver
• Source: AreteDriver/ai-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.