Web Search SOP

Layer Rules

• Layer: sop — wraps MCP tools directly
• Called by: Any tactic or strategy requiring quick web orientation
• Calls: configured web-search MCP tools (never calls other SOPs)

Purpose

Fast orientation search. Understand what pages and sources exist on a topic. Suitable for quick fact-checking, getting an overview of a landscape, or finding URLs for deeper research via web-research.

Use this when you need to:

• Find what pages exist on a topic
• Get a rough overview of available information
• Discover URLs for deeper research (via web-research)
• Quick fact-check with snippet-level confidence
• Monitor recent news on a topic

This skill returns snippets only. For full-page content analysis, use web-research.

Provider Selection

Use whichever web-search MCP is configured — check availability yourself. If more than one is active, try them in the order listed below. This order is just the writing order, not a hard priority — any active provider is equally valid.

• Brave — see Provider Details § Brave
• Tavily — see Provider Details § Tavily
• Keenable — see Provider Details § Keenable (keyless; no API key required)

Set the result count to ~10 per call (provider-specific parameter named in each Provider Details subsection).

HARD-GATE

<HARD-GATE> Web search returns snippets only (1-3 sentences per result).

Snippets are NOT authoritative content. They are orientation signals.

PROHIBITED:

• Drawing substantive conclusions from snippets alone
• Treating snippet content as verified facts
• Completing a research task using only search results
• Presenting snippet summaries as thorough analysis

REQUIRED:

• Label all results as "snippets for orientation"
• For any analysis requiring full content, escalate to web-research
• Make clear to the user that snippets provide direction, not answers

</HARD-GATE>

Workflow

Step 1: Formulate Query

• Use specific, targeted keywords
• Consider time filters if the provider supports them
• Consider result count: 5-20 results (default ~10)
• For news: use news-specific search if available
• For location-based: use local search if available

Step 2: Execute Search

Call the configured provider's search tool with ~10 results per call. See Provider Details for exact tool name and parameters.

Step 3: Return Structured Results

For each result, present:

• Title — page title
• URL — full URL (for reference or escalation to web-research)
• Snippet — 1-3 sentence description (orientation only, not authoritative)
• Date — when available (especially for news)

Provider Details

Brave

Available tools:

| Tool | Purpose | Returns | |------|---------|---------| | brave_web_search | General web search | URL, title, description snippet | | brave_news_search | Recent news articles | URL, title, snippet, date | | brave_video_search | Video content discovery | URL, title, description, duration | | brave_image_search | Image search | URL, title, image properties | | brave_local_search | Local businesses/places | Name, address, rating, hours | | brave_summarizer | AI-generated summary (Pro only) | Summarized text with references |

Key parameters:

• brave_web_search:
• query (required): search terms, max 400 chars
• count: 1-20 results (default 10)
• offset: pagination, 0-9 (default 0)
• freshness: pd (24h), pw (7d), pm (31d), py (365d), or YYYY-MM-DDtoYYYY-MM-DD
• safesearch: off / moderate / strict (default moderate)
• search_lang: language code (default en)
• country: 2-letter country code (default US)
• result_filter: array of types to include (web, news, videos, etc.)

• brave_news_search: same core parameters, better for time-sensitive queries
• brave_video_search: returns duration and thumbnail_url
• brave_image_search: count 1-200 (default 50)
• brave_local_search: for "near me" queries, returns business details
• brave_summarizer: requires Pro plan, must first run brave_web_search with summary=true

Examples:

Quick fact check:

brave_web_search(query="Claude 3.5 Sonnet release date", count=5)

News monitoring:

brave_news_search(query="transformer architecture breakthroughs", freshness="pm", count=10)

Landscape scan:

brave_web_search(query="MCP server frameworks comparison 2025", count=15)

Tavily

Available tools:

| Tool | Purpose | Returns | |------|---------|---------| | tavily_search | LLM-optimized web search | URL, title, content snippet, score |

Key parameters:

• tavily_search:
• query (required): search terms
• max_results: number of results (default 10)
• search_depth: basic or advanced (default basic)
• include_domains: restrict to specific domains
• exclude_domains: exclude specific domains

Examples:

Quick fact check:

tavily_search(query="Claude 3.5 Sonnet release date", max_results=5)

Landscape scan:

tavily_search(query="MCP server frameworks comparison 2025", max_results=10)

Keenable

Keyless by default — the keenable MCP server needs no API key.

Available tools:

| Tool | Purpose | Returns | |------|---------|---------| | search_web_pages | Web search over the Keenable index | title, URL, description snippet | | fetch_page_content | Fetch a URL as clean markdown | title, URL, full page content |

Key parameters:

• search_web_pages:
• query (required): search terms
• fetch_page_content:
• url (required): page to fetch as markdown

Examples:

Quick fact check:

search_web_pages(query="Claude 3.5 Sonnet release date")

Landscape scan then deep read:

search_web_pages(query="MCP server frameworks comparison 2025")
fetch_page_content(url="https://...")

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Available SOPs

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

| SOP | When to use | | --- | --- | | web-research | Deep web research — fetches full page content for analysis. Snippets alone are PROHIBITED for conclusions. |

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