Web Search API

Overview

Use Web Search when you need ranked search results and want to decide what to do with them yourself. It does not call an LLM. For generated answers with citations, use the Answer API. For full page content after search, combine Web Search with the Scraper API.

Endpoint

POST /api/v2/web_search

Quickstart

import { LLMLayerClient } from 'llmlayer';

const client = new LLMLayerClient({
  apiKey: process.env.LLMLAYER_API_KEY,
});

const response = await client.searchWeb({
  query: 'AI regulation updates',
  searchType: 'news',
  recency: 'week',
  location: 'us',
});

for (const result of response.results.slice(0, 3)) {
  console.log(result.title, result.link);
}

from llmlayer import LLMLayerClient

client = LLMLayerClient(api_key="YOUR_LLMLAYER_API_KEY")

response = client.search_web(
    query="AI regulation updates",
    search_type="news",
    recency="week",
    location="us",
)

for result in response.results[:3]:
    print(result.get("title"), result.get("link"))

curl -X POST https://api.llmlayer.dev/api/v2/web_search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_LLMLAYER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "AI regulation updates",
    "search_type": "news",
    "recency": "week",
    "location": "us"
  }'

Search Types

Type	Use it for	Notes
`general`	Standard web results	Default
`news`	Recent news articles	Supports `recency`
`shopping`	Product listings	Result fields vary by source
`videos`	Video search	Useful before transcript extraction
`images`	Image results	Returns image-oriented metadata
`scholar`	Academic papers	Best effort availability by query

Request Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
`query`	`string`	Yes	-	Search query
`search_type`	`string`	No	`general`	`general`, `news`, `shopping`, `videos`, `images`, or `scholar`
`location`	`string`	No	`us`	Country/location hint
`recency`	`string`	No	`null`	`hour`, `day`, `week`, `month`, or `year`
`domain_filter`	`string[]`	No	`null`	Include domains, or exclude with a leading `-`

HTTP requests use snake_case. The TypeScript SDK uses camelCase, for example searchType and domainFilter.

Response

{
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "Example result",
      "link": "https://www.ycombinator.com/blog",
      "snippet": "Short description..."
    }
  ],
  "cost": 0.002
}

Field	Type	Description
`results`	`array`	Search results. Shape depends on `search_type`.
`cost`	`number \| null`	Cost in USD for the request.

Common Patterns

Domain-constrained search

response = client.search_web(
    query="retrieval augmented generation",
    domain_filter=["arxiv.org", "openai.com", "-reddit.com"],
)

Search then scrape

const search = await client.searchWeb({
  query: 'best practices for LLM evaluation',
  searchType: 'general',
});

const firstUrl = search.results[0]?.link;
if (typeof firstUrl === 'string') {
  const page = await client.scrape(firstUrl, {
    formats: ['markdown'],
    mainContentOnly: true,
  });
  console.log(page.markdown);
}

Pricing

Web Search costs $0.002 per request.

Errors

Status	Meaning
`400`	Missing or invalid query/search parameters
`401`	Missing or invalid LLMLayer API key
`429`	Rate limit exceeded
`500`	Search provider or internal error

See Errors & Refunds for the shared error format.

More Examples

Search + Scrape Pipeline

Find pages, scrape full content, then answer with sources.

Answer API

Use search results directly with an LLM.

Get Started

Resources

Examples

Overview

Endpoint

Quickstart

Search Types

Request Parameters

Response

Common Patterns

Domain-constrained search

Search then scrape

Pricing

Errors

More Examples

Search + Scrape Pipeline

Answer API

​Overview

​Endpoint

​Quickstart

​Search Types

​Request Parameters

​Response

​Common Patterns

​Domain-constrained search

​Search then scrape

​Pricing

​Errors

​More Examples

Search + Scrape Pipeline

Answer API

Overview

Endpoint

Quickstart

Search Types

Request Parameters

Response

Common Patterns

Domain-constrained search

Search then scrape

Pricing

Errors

More Examples