Web Search

Dagu supports web access for Steward in two different ways:

Backend	What The Agent Gets	Best For	Requires
Model Web Search	The selected model/provider uses its native web search capability.	Models that already support hosted search and citations.	A model/provider that supports provider-native search.
Tavily	First-class web_search and web_extract tools.	Consistent search tools across models, including models without native search.	Tavily API key.
Firecrawl	First-class web_search and web_extract tools.	Search plus page extraction through Firecrawl.	Firecrawl API key.

Use Model Web Search when you want the model provider to manage the search. Use Tavily or Firecrawl when you want Dagu to expose explicit tools that the agent can call during the tool loop.

Configure In The Web UI

You need admin access to change agent settings.

1. Open Steward Settings at /agent-settings
2. Enable Steward, add a model, and set a default model
3. Open Agent Tools at /agent-tools
4. Turn on Web Search Backend
5. Choose Model Web Search, Tavily, or Firecrawl
6. Fill in the backend-specific fields
7. Save settings

API keys are write-only. After saving, the UI only shows whether a key is configured. Use Clear Key and save again to remove a stored key.

Model Web Search

Model Web Search enables provider-native web search on the model request. It is not exposed as a separate Dagu tool, and it is not controlled by the tool permission list.

The only UI setting for this backend is Max Uses per Request. Leave it empty for no Dagu-level limit, or set a positive integer to cap search invocations for one model request.

Provider-native search support depends on the selected model provider and model. If a provider does not support native search in Dagu, use Tavily or Firecrawl instead.

Tavily Backend

The Tavily backend exposes:

• web_search backed by Tavily Search
• web_extract backed by Tavily Extract

Fields:

Field	Description
Tavily API Key	Tavily API key. Stored write-only.
Max Results	Maximum web_search.limit allowed by Dagu. Tavily allows up to 20. If the model omits limit, Dagu requests 5 results.
Search Depth	Tavily search_depth: basic, advanced, fast, or ultra-fast.

Dagu uses https://api.tavily.com by default. API/config users can set a Tavily-compatible baseUrl when routing through a proxy or compatible service.

Firecrawl Backend

The Firecrawl backend exposes:

• web_search backed by Firecrawl Search
• web_extract backed by Firecrawl Scrape

Fields:

Field	Description
Firecrawl API Key	Firecrawl API key. Stored write-only.
Max Results	Maximum web_search.limit allowed by Dagu. Firecrawl allows up to 100. If the model omits limit, Dagu requests 5 results.

Dagu uses https://api.firecrawl.dev by default. API/config users can set a Firecrawl-compatible baseUrl when routing through a proxy or compatible service.

Tool Behavior

Hosted backends add two callable tools to the agent tool loop.

Tool	Input	Description
web_search	query string, optional limit integer	Search the public web for current information.
web_extract	urls array, up to 10 HTTP/HTTPS URLs	Extract readable text content from public web pages.

The tools are available only when:

• Web Search Backend is enabled
• the selected backend is Tavily or Firecrawl
• the selected backend has an API key configured
• the tool is allowed by the global tool policy

If a workflow action: agent.run step sets with.tools.enabled, include web_search or web_extract there when the step should use them.

steps:
  - action: agent.run
    with:
      tools:
        enabled:
          - web_search
          - web_extract
          - think
      max_iterations: 20
      messages:
        - role: user
          content: |
            Find the latest release notes for the service dependency.
            Extract the most relevant source page and summarize breaking changes.
    output: RELEASE_SUMMARY

The step still inherits the backend credentials and provider choice from the global agent settings. DAG YAML does not store Tavily or Firecrawl API keys.

Workflow Agent Steps

Workflow agent steps can use both web access styles:

• Model Web Search: inherited from the global agent setting, or overridden with with.web_search
• Tavily / Firecrawl: inherited from the global agent web tool setting and filtered by tool policy

Provider-native search can be overridden in YAML:

steps:
  - action: agent.run
    with:
      web_search:
        enabled: true
        max_uses: 5
      messages:
        - role: user
          content: "Summarize current incident reports for this vendor."
    output: INCIDENT_SUMMARY

Provider-backed tools are configured globally, then selected like other tools:

steps:
  - action: agent.run
    with:
      tools:
        enabled:
          - web_search
          - web_extract
      messages:
        - role: user
          content: "Find and extract the current API changelog."
    output: CHANGELOG_SUMMARY

Distributed Workers

Agent web settings are part of the agent configuration. In shared-nothing distributed execution, Dagu sends the execution snapshot to the worker, including the agent config needed by action: agent.run steps.

Workers still need outbound network access to the selected search provider. If a worker cannot reach Tavily, Firecrawl, or the model provider, the tool call fails in that worker process.

Advanced Configuration

The Web UI writes the agent configuration to the agent config store under Dagu's data directory. For file-based deployments, that store is {data_dir}/agent/config.json.

The REST API uses camelCase fields:

{
  "webSearch": {
    "enabled": true,
    "maxUses": 5
  },
  "webTools": {
    "enabled": true,
    "backend": "tavily",
    "tavily": {
      "apiKey": "tvly-...",
      "maxResults": 10,
      "searchDepth": "basic"
    }
  }
}

Supported backend values are tavily and firecrawl.

Provider Docs

• Tavily Search API
• Tavily Extract API
• Firecrawl Search API
• Firecrawl Scrape API

Related Pages

• Agent Step
• Steward Tools Reference
• Tool Permissions & Bash Policy
• Models & Providers