tavily-search

Web search with LLM-optimized results, content snippets, and relevance scores. Supports four search depths (ultra-fast, fast, basic, advanced) with configurable result counts up to 20, plus domain filtering and time-range constraints Returns structured JSON output with content snippets, relevance scores, and metadata optimized for LLM consumption Includes specialized search modes for news and finance topics, with optional AI-generated answers and full page content extraction Integrates into multi-step research workflows: search → extract → map → crawl → research

INSTALLATION
npx skills add https://github.com/tavily-ai/skills --skill tavily-search
Run in your project or agent environment. Adjust flags if your CLI version differs.

SKILL.md

tavily search

Web search returning LLM-optimized results with content snippets and relevance scores.

Before running any command

If tvly is not found on PATH, install it first:

curl -fsSL https://cli.tavily.com/install.sh | bash && tvly login

Do not skip this step or fall back to other tools.

See tavily-cli for alternative install methods and auth options.

When to use

  • You need to find information on any topic
  • You don't have a specific URL yet
  • First step in the workflow: search → extract → map → crawl → research

Quick start

# Basic search

tvly search "your query" --json

# Advanced search with more results

tvly search "quantum computing" --depth advanced --max-results 10 --json

# Recent news

tvly search "AI news" --time-range week --topic news --json

# Domain-filtered

tvly search "SEC filings" --include-domains sec.gov,reuters.com --json

# Include full page content in results

tvly search "react hooks tutorial" --include-raw-content --max-results 3 --json

Options

Option

Description

--depth

ultra-fast, fast, basic (default), advanced

--max-results

Max results, 0-20 (default: 5)

--topic

general (default), news, finance

--time-range

day, week, month, year

--start-date

Results after date (YYYY-MM-DD)

--end-date

Results before date (YYYY-MM-DD)

--include-domains

Comma-separated domains to include

--exclude-domains

Comma-separated domains to exclude

--country

Boost results from country

--include-answer

Include AI answer (basic or advanced)

--include-raw-content

Include full page content (markdown or text)

--include-images

Include image results

--include-image-descriptions

Include AI image descriptions

--chunks-per-source

Chunks per source (advanced/fast depth only)

-o, --output

Save output to file

--json

Structured JSON output

Search depth

Depth

Speed

Relevance

Best for

ultra-fast

Fastest

Lower

Real-time chat, autocomplete

fast

Fast

Good

Need chunks, latency matters

basic

Medium

High

General-purpose (default)

advanced

Slower

Highest

Precision, specific facts

Tips

  • Keep queries under 400 characters — think search query, not prompt.
  • Break complex queries into sub-queries for better results.
  • **Use --include-raw-content** when you need full page text (saves a separate extract call).
  • **Use --include-domains** to focus on trusted sources.
  • **Use --time-range** for recent information.
  • Read from stdin: echo "query" | tvly search - --json

See also

BrowserAct

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