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Web Search

Web Search is a built-in chat capability—not an installable integration. When enabled, the webSearch tool is available in every chat session automatically. You do not select it in the integration picker.

Search runs through Perplexity via the Vercel AI Gateway.

How it works​

When the model calls webSearch, Toby makes a separate lightweight call to the Vercel AI Gateway (using a small gateway model with Perplexity search). Results include titles, URLs, snippets, and optional dates.

Because search uses its own gateway call—not your persona’s model turn—web search works with any persona AI provider (OpenAI, Ollama, or Vercel AI Gateway). Your chat model does not need to be the gateway.

No separate web-search API key is required. Toby reuses your Vercel AI Gateway API key.

Prerequisites​

  • A Vercel AI Gateway API key configured under Settings → AI → Vercel AI Gateway
    See Vercel AI Gateway.

Configure​

  1. Open Toby.app → Settings → AI → Vercel AI Gateway and enter your API key.
  2. Open Settings → Web Search.
  3. Set Enabled to On.
  4. Leave Provider as the default (AI Gateway / Perplexity) unless Toby offers additional providers later.
SettingPurpose
ProviderSearch backend (currently AI Gateway)
EnabledMaster switch for the global webSearch tool

Using web search in chat​

Once enabled (and the gateway key is present), webSearch is a global tool in all sessions. Ask Toby to look things up or research current information.

Example prompts​

  • “Search the web for the latest news on AI regulation”
  • “Research the best restaurants in Tokyo near Shibuya station”
  • “Find recent articles about the Rust programming language”

For structured forecasts, enable Weather and ask about the weather for a place—Toby uses getWeather instead of web search when that tool is available.

Combined with web fetch​

fetchWebContent is always available and does not require Web Search settings. You can combine both:

  1. Search: “Search for recent articles about TypeScript 5.5”
  2. Read: “Read the content from the first result”

Toby uses webSearch for results, then fetchWebContent to extract clean article text from a URL.