Agent skill · research science · sickn33
pi-web-search
Give Pi Agents a safe web-search and fetch workflow using the installed pi-web-access package.
Why this skill is useful
Adds specific commands and workflows for web searching and content fetching that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires ffmpeg, pi-web-access, yt-dlp installed locally. Requires deepapi account access. About 2k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-07. 44,571 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Web Search When to Use Use when a Pi Agent task needs current web information, page fetches, PDFs, YouTube, or GitHub content. Use when Pi should use its own web-access package instead of another agent browser tool. The pi-web-access package is installed globally. Zero-config via Exa MCP (no API key), with fallback Exa → Perplexity → Gemini. CRITICAL: always pass workflow: "none" Every websearch call MUST include workflow: "none". This skips the interactive browser curator popup (the user does not want it opening). No exceptions — single query or batched queries, always set workflow: "none". Tools websearch — search the web; returns synthesized answers with citations. Can be called many times per turn. Always pass workflow: "none". codesearch — zero-key Exa code-context. Use for library/API/code lookups instead of generic websearch. fetchcontent — fetch URL(s) → markdown; handles PDFs, YouTube, GitHub. getsearchcontent — big pages (>30k chars) are truncated in responses but stored in full; call this to pull the rest on demand so they don't blow context. fetchcontent specifics GitHub URLs are cloned, not scraped — you get real files + a local path to explore with read/bash (private repos need the gh CLI). Use this for dev work. PDFs → auto-extracted to markdown in ~/Downloads/, readable in sections (text-only, no OCR). YouTube/video → full raw transcripts + frame extraction. Needs a GEMINIAPIKEY (not zero-config); frame extraction also needs ffmpeg/yt-dlp. Routing — match the user's phrasing Always use the websearch tool. These counts are HARD MINIMUMS — count your queries before answering and do not stop short: "web search" → at least 2 queries, varied keywords/angles, then synthesize. "extensive web research" → at least 4 queries, totally different keywords and angles. "deep research" → at least 8 queries, totally different keywords and angles, run across 2–3 successive batches (refine angles after each batch), to learn as much as possible about the topic. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills sickn33/pi-web-search