AgentWeb CLI

A command-line tool for giving an agent web-search results before you commit to a search API account.

What it is

AgentWeb is a command-line web-search tool for agent workflows. I use it when an agent needs public search results and I do not want to create a vendor account, add a paid API key, and manage another quota before I know that search will help the task.

A basic query looks like this:

agentweb search "Astro multilingual sitemap"

The command returns a ranked result list that another tool or agent can inspect. It is a discovery step, not a source of record.

Why it exists

The first version of a research workflow often has an awkward fixed cost. A search API can be the right long-term choice, but creating the account and storing credentials can be disproportionate when I am testing a small idea or a temporary workflow.

I built AgentWeb to make that first check lighter. It lets me ask whether public search improves the work before I spend time on provider setup.

This is also where the boundary matters. Search results are leads. A title and snippet can be stale, incomplete, or wrong. AgentWeb does not make them facts, and I still open the source page before relying on a claim.

How it works

AgentWeb sends a query to multiple search sources, removes duplicate results, and combines the returned candidates into one ranked list. Provider behavior changes, and any source can fail, so the result should be read as a best-effort starting set rather than a complete view of the web.

The command has a few controls that help narrow that first pass:

• --prefer favors selected domains when they are relevant to the query;
• --exclude removes domains that are known noise for the task; and
• --context changes how many results are returned.

For an agent workflow, that is enough to keep search separate from judgment. The agent can retrieve candidates, open the sources that matter, and cite or reject them based on the page itself.

Installation

The installer uses uv, installing it first if it is not already available. It then installs AgentWeb with browser, crawling, and YouTube extras and runs an offline health check. Download and inspect the current installer before you run it:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thanhan-a17/agentweb/main/install.sh \
  -o /tmp/agentweb-install.sh
less /tmp/agentweb-install.sh
bash /tmp/agentweb-install.sh

Before placing it in a production workflow, run agentweb doctor. Search sources and their availability can change after installation. My next use for it is still the same modest one: test whether search is useful, then decide whether the workflow needs a more permanent provider integration.