Web Search

Gives Synth real-time access to the internet for factual grounding. When a reply needs up-to-date or external information, Synth can search the web and fetch page content instead of relying only on what the model already knows.

This folder is the implementation package behind the web_search_plugin.py plugin (which exposes the search_current_knowledge action).

How it works

• search_engine.py — the single implementation of the search backends. SearXNG is the primary engine (self-hosted, privacy-friendly); Tavily is an optional fallback. It also contains the page fetcher, with a per-task FetchCache so the same URL is not downloaded twice in one turn.

• search_orchestrator.py — a background orchestrator that can run searches outside the normal message lifecycle: it runs several queries concurrently, summarizes results with the Grillo-scope cortex, and wakes Synth via a low-priority beat when results are ready. Task state is persisted in the web_search_tasks table.

Configuration

Key	Purpose
SEARXNG_URL	Base URL of the SearXNG instance to query.
TAVILY_API_KEY	API key enabling the Tavily fallback.
RECON_MAX_RESULTS / RECON_TIMEOUT	Result cap and timeout for searches.

See also the recon_web_search.py Recon contributor, which decides whether a turn needs a web search before this backend is invoked.