web-search-plus-plugin

Multi-provider web search plugin for OpenClaw.

Requires at least one configured provider API key or a SEARXNG_INSTANCE_URL.

Install

openclaw plugins install clawhub:web-search-plus-plugin-v2

It registers a web_search_plus tool that can query multiple providers and auto-route to the one that best fits the query.

Why use this instead of OpenClaw's built-in web_search?

OpenClaw's built-in web_search uses Brave Search.

You might want this plugin when:

• Brave returns thin or no results for a query, but Serper/Google or You.com still finds relevant pages.
• You want research-oriented output; Tavily can return structured results that are easier to summarize.
• You want semantic discovery; Exa can find related content that plain keyword search may miss.

Supported providers:

• Serper (Google)
• Tavily
• Exa
• Querit
• Perplexity
• You.com
• SearXNG
• Linkup
• Firecrawl

What you need

You do not need every provider.

You need at least one configured provider:

• an API key for any hosted provider, or
• a SearXNG instance URL

Supported "at least one" options:

• SERPER_API_KEY
• TAVILY_API_KEY
• EXA_API_KEY
• QUERIT_API_KEY
• PERPLEXITY_API_KEY
• KILOCODE_API_KEY
• YOU_API_KEY
• SEARXNG_INSTANCE_URL

Quick setup

cp .env.template .env
# add at least one API key or SearXNG URL

Then load the plugin in OpenClaw and restart the gateway.

Provider overview

Auto-routing logic

The plugin scores each query against the providers you have configured and picks the best match for that query type. If the first choice is unavailable or fails, it falls back to another configured provider instead of failing immediately.

Notes

• Auto-routing chooses among configured providers only.
• If a provider is missing credentials, it is skipped.
• SearXNG includes SSRF protection by default.
• SEARXNG_ALLOW_PRIVATE=true disables that protection and should only be used on trusted private networks.

Environment variables

• SERPER_API_KEY
• TAVILY_API_KEY
• EXA_API_KEY
• QUERIT_API_KEY
• PERPLEXITY_API_KEY
• KILOCODE_API_KEY — alternative Perplexity-compatible search gateway via https://api.kilo.ai/api/gateway/chat/completions
• YOU_API_KEY
• SEARXNG_INSTANCE_URL
• SEARXNG_ALLOW_PRIVATE
• LINKUP_API_KEY
• FIRECRAWL_API_KEY

Cache behavior

The plugin writes cache files only inside its own .cache/ directory:

• hashed search result payloads, including returned results plus cache metadata such as timestamp, query, provider, and search params
• provider_health.json, which stores provider failure/cooldown state and sanitized last-error text for fallback routing

No API keys are written to the cache by the plugin logic.

Repository

GitHub: https://github.com/robbyczgw-cla/web-search-plus-plugin

Acknowledgments

Thanks to @Wysie for contributing the original Linkup and Firecrawl provider integrations in the sister project hermes-web-search-plus, which were then ported into this OpenClaw plugin in v2.1.0.