Web search providers

Cerevisor's web_search tool needs a backend. Three are supported: Provider Strengths Tavily Built for LLM agents. Clean JSON, source URLs, decent recency. Perplexity Synthesized answers + sources. Often more analytical. Linkup Strong recency + European source coverage. License gate: Trial+/Paid only. Configuration Settings → Web Search lists every provider. For each: Field What it does API key Paste your key. Stored in the OS keychain. Test Sends a trivial ping query without saving the key first, so you can validate before committing. At the top of the tab, the Default search provider dropdown picks the workflow-wide default: None / Tavily / Perplexity / Linkup. Per-agent overrides In an Agent Config popup, the Search provider field picks an override: Default : use the workflow's default. None : disable web search entirely for this agent. Tavily / Perplexity / Linkup : use this provider for this agent. Useful when a workflow uses one provider broadly but a specific agent needs a different one (e.g. Linkup for EU-source coverage on one researcher agent). Getting an API key Tavily: tavily.com : sign up, generate key from dashboard. Perplexity: perplexity.ai/settings/api : requires Pro subscription for API access. Linkup: linkup.so : sign up, generate key. Test before saving The Test button on each provider runs a minimal smoke test: Sends query: 'ping' with a 10-second timeout. Returns { ok: true/false, message, status? } . Uses a redactor so your API key never appears in error messages. If the test fails: 401 / 403 : invalid key. 429 : rate limited or quota exhausted. Network timeout : provider unreachable, or you don't have internet. How the web_search tool calls the provider When an agent calls web_search , Cerevisor: Resolves the agent's search provider (per-agent override → workflow default). If None , the tool returns an error to the agent ("web search disabled for this agent"). Otherwise, calls the provider's search API. Returns the structured results to the agent: title, URL, snippet, publish date (when available). The agent processes the results in its own loop, typically following up with web_fetch calls on URLs it wants to read in full. Cost Each provider bills per API call (sometimes per result returned). Cerevisor doesn't track web-search cost in its run cost display: the cost lives on your provider's dashboard. For heavy research workflows, Linkup is often the cheapest at scale; Perplexity is more expensive but produces richer output. When you don't have a search provider The web_search tool fails gracefully, returns an error to the agent. Agents that depend on web_search will fail their preflight check before the run starts, so you'll know. For workflows that don't need web search, set the workflow default to None and skip configuration. Adding a new backend Adding a new web-search provider to Cerevisor is a small change in the codebase: a new entry in the search-provider registry, a new probe function, a new dispatch branch in the w

Back to docs