serper

# Serper Google search via Serper API. Fetches results AND reads the actual web pages to extract clean full-text content via trafilatura. Not just snippets — full article text. ### How It Works 1. **Serper API call** — fast Google search, returns result URLs instantly 2. **Concurrent page scraping** — all result pages are fetched and extracted in parallel using trafilatura with a **3-second timeout per page** 3. **Streamed output** — results print one at a time as each page finishes Each invocation gives you 5 results (default mode) or up to 6 results (current mode), each with full page content. This is already a lot of information. --- ## Query Discipline **Craft ONE good search query. That is almost always enough.** Each call returns multiple results with full page text — you get broad coverage from a single query. Do not run multiple searches to "explore" a topic. One well-chosen query with the right mode covers it. **At most two calls** if the user's request genuinely spans two distinct topics (e.g. "compare X vs Y" where X and Y need separate searches, or one `default` + one `current` call for different aspects). Never more than two. **Do NOT:** - Run the same query with different wording to "get more results" - Run sequential searches to "dig deeper" — the full page content is already deep - Run one search to find something, then another to follow up — read the content you already have --- ## When to Use This Skill **Use serper when:** - Any question that needs current, factual information from the web - Research topics that need full article content, not just snippets - News and current events - Product info, prices, comparisons, reviews - Technical docs, how-to guides - Anything where reading the actual page matters **Do NOT use this skill for:** - Questions you can answer from your training data - Pure math, code execution, creative writing - Greetings, chitchat **IMPORTANT: This skill already fetches and extracts full page content. Do NOT use web_fetch, WebFetch, or any other URL-fetching tool on the URLs returned by this skill. The content is already included in the output.** --- ## Two Search Modes There are exactly two modes. Pick the right one based on the query: ### `default` — General search (all-time) - All-time Google web search, **5 results**, each enriched with full page content - Use for: general questions, research, how-to, evergreen topics, product info, technical docs, comparisons, tutorials, anything NOT time-sensitive ### `current` — News and recent info - Past-week Google web search (3 results) + Google News (3 results), each enriched with full page content - Use for: news, current events, recent developments, breaking news, announcements, anything time-sensitive #### Mode Selection Guide | Query signals | Mode | |---------------|------| | "how does X work", "what is X", "explain X" | `default` | | Product research, comparisons, tutorials | `default` | | Technical documentation, guides | `default` | | Historical topics, evergreen content | `default` | | "news", "latest", "today", "this week", "recent" | `current` | | "what happened", "breaking", "announced", "released" | `current` | | Current events, politics, sports scores, stock prices | `current` | --- ## Locale (REQUIRED for non-English queries) **Default is global** — no country filter, English results. This ONLY works for English queries. **You MUST ALWAYS set `--gl` and `--hl` when ANY of these are true:** - The user's message is in a non-English language - The search query you construct is in a non-English language - The user mentions a specific country, city, or region - The user asks for local results (prices, news, stores, etc.) in a non-English context **If the user writes in German, you MUST pass `--gl de --hl de`. No exceptions.** | Scenario | Flags | |----------|-------| | English query, no country target | *(omit --gl and --hl)* | | German query OR user writes in German OR targeting DE/AT/CH | `--gl de --hl de` | | French query OR user writes in French OR targeting France | `--gl fr --hl fr` | | Any other non-English language/country | `--gl XX --hl XX` (ISO codes) | **Rule of thumb:** If the query string contains non-English words, set `--gl` and `--hl` to match that language. --- ## How to Invoke ```bash python3 scripts/search.py -q "QUERY" [--mode MODE] [--gl COUNTRY] [--hl LANG] ``` ### Examples ```bash # English, general research python3 scripts/search.py -q "how does HTTPS work" # English, time-sensitive python3 scripts/search.py -q "OpenAI latest announcements" --mode current # German query — set locale + current mode for news/prices python3 scripts/search.py -q "aktuelle Preise iPhone" --mode current --gl de --hl de # German news python3 scripts/search.py -q "Nachrichten aus Berlin" --mode current --gl de --hl de # French product research python3 scripts/search.py -q "meilleur smartphone 2026" --gl fr --hl fr ``` --- ## Output Format The output is a **streamed JSON array** — elements print one at a time as each page is scraped: ```json [{"query": "...", "mode": "default", "locale": {"gl": "world", "hl": "en"}, "results": [{"title": "...", "url": "...", "source": "web"}, ...]} ,{"title": "...", "url": "...", "source": "web", "content": "Full extracted page text..."} ,{"title": "...", "url": "...", "source": "news", "date": "2 hours ago", "content": "Full article text..."} ] ``` The first element is search metadata. Each following element contains a result with full extracted content. Result fields: - `title` — page title - `url` — source URL - `source` — `"web"`, `"news"`, or `"knowledge_graph"` - `content` — full extracted page text (falls back to search snippet if extraction fails) - `date` — present when available (news results always, web results sometimes) --- ## CLI Reference | Flag | Description | |------|-------------| | `-q, --query` | Search query (required) | | `-m, --mode` | `default` (all-time, 5 results) or `current` (past week + news, 3 each) | | `--gl` | Country code (e.g. `de`, `us`, `fr`, `at`, `ch`) | | `--hl` | Language code (e.g. `en`, `de`, `fr`) |