Internet Search

---

name: internet-search description: "How to use the internet_search tool effectively — category routing, query formulation, and multi-search strategies. Use whenever web search is needed: current events, research papers, community opinions, or any information beyond training knowledge." metadata: { "openclaw": { "emoji": "🔍" } }

---

Internet Search

Queries a self-hosted SearXNG instance aggregating multiple search engines.

Category Routing

Always set category based on the nature of the query.

| Category | When to use | Engines | |------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------| | general | Default. Facts, how-tos, products, people, broad web. | Brave, Bing, DDG, Startpage, Qwant, Wikipedia… | | news | Recent events, breaking news, anything time-sensitive. | Bing News, DDG News | | academic | Research papers, studies, medical literature, preprints. | arXiv, Google Scholar, PubMed | | social | Opinions, community recommendations, "what do people think about X".| Reddit |

Query Formulation

Write queries as a search engine expects — keywords, not full sentences:

# Bad
"what is the fastest async runtime for rust"
Good
"rust async runtime benchmarks 2025"

news: include a time anchor — "OpenAI o3 release 2025" not just "OpenAI o3"

academic: use field terminology — "transformer attention efficiency survey"

social: phrase as community search — "reddit best mechanical keyboard 2025"

SearXNG Search Syntax (in query)

SearXNG supports lightweight query modifiers you can embed directly into the query string:

| Syntax | Meaning | Examples | |--------|---------|----------| | ! / ! | Select engine(s) and/or a category. Chainable and inclusive; abbreviations are accepted. | !wp paris, !wikipedia paris, !map paris, !map !ddg !wp paris | | : | Language filter | :fr !wp Wau Holland |

Count

count=5 (default) — sufficient for most tasks

count=10 — comparing many options, checking consensus

count=3 — quick fact checks

Multi-Search Strategy

Fire multiple focused searches rather than one broad one:

# Bad: one vague search
internet_search("best way to deploy Node.js")
Good: three targeted searches
internet_search("Node.js Docker deployment best practices 2025")
internet_search("Node.js PM2 vs Docker production", category="social")
internet_search("Node.js zero-downtime deployment strategies")

Combine general + social for factual + sentiment coverage:

internet_search("Bun runtime performance vs Node.js benchmarks")
internet_search("Bun runtime production experience", category="social")

When NOT to Use

Things you already know with high confidence

Stable API docs or well-known syntax — use training knowledge

Repeating a search that already answered the question

Common Mistakes

| Mistake | Fix | |-------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------| | general for a research paper | Use category="academic" | | Searching "what happened today" | Use category="news" with a specific topic | | One broad search for a multi-part question| Break into 2–3 focused searches | | Repeating a failed search verbatim | Rephrase with different keywords | | count=20 for a simple fact | Default count=5 is almost always enough |