tavily-search

tavily search

Web search returning LLM-optimized results with content snippets and relevance scores.

Before running

Run search directly when tvly is available. Search supports capped keyless access, so do not look for an API key or authenticate before the first request.

If tvly is missing, follow the tavily-cli setup before retrying. If the keyless cap is reached in an interactive session, run tvly login to open browser OAuth, then retry the original search once. In an unattended environment, report the cap and authentication options instead of starting an interactive flow. Do not start a second login immediately after guided setup has completed.

When to use

• You need to find information on any topic
• You don't have a specific URL yet
• First step in the workflow: search → extract → map → crawl → research

Quick start

# Basic search
tvly search "your query" --json
 
# Advanced search with more results
tvly search "quantum computing" --depth advanced

Options

Search depth

Tips

• Keep queries under 400 characters — think search query, not prompt.
• Break complex queries into sub-queries for better results.
• Use --include-raw-content when you need full page text (saves a separate extract call).
• Use --include-domains to focus on trusted sources.
• Use --time-range for recent information.
• Verify identity-sensitive facts at the exact primary source. For releases, versions, ownership, or similarly named projects, confirm the official repository or domain instead of trusting a generated answer or package-name match alone.
• Read from stdin: echo "query" | tvly search - --json

See also

• tavily-extract — extract content from specific URLs
• tavily-research — comprehensive multi-source research