# Internet Search

The `internet_search` tool is a **built-in tool** automatically available on all `/v1/chat/completions` requests. It uses **Perplexity AI Sonar** under the hood to search the live web and return a synthesized answer with citations. You don't configure it — the model invokes it automatically when the prompt requires real-time or current information.

### How It Works

1. You send a normal chat request with a question that needs current data
2. The LLM detects it needs fresh web data and calls `internet_search` internally
3. The tool queries **Perplexity Sonar** (`temperature: 0.1` for accuracy) with your query
4. Perplexity returns a synthesized answer + citation URLs
5. The model wraps the answer into a standard chat completion response

#### Streaming Behavior

Unlike image generation (which delivers the result at the end), internet search **integrates naturally with streaming**. The stream shows:

1. A `tool_calls` chunk announcing `internet_search` was invoked
2. Immediately followed by content chunks streaming the answer word-by-word
3. A final `[DONE]` chunk
4. A trailing `usage` data chunk (if `stream_options.include_usage: true`)

```json
data: {"delta":{"tool_calls":[{"function":{"name":"internet_search",...}}]}}
data: {"delta":{"content":"As"}}
data: {"delta":{"content":" of"}}
...
data: [DONE]
data: {"usage":{...}}

```

### Use Cases & Examples

#### 1. Breaking News / Current Events

```json
{
  "model": "google/gemini-2.5-flash",
  "messages": [
    { "role": "user", "content": "What are the latest AI news today?" }
  ]
}

```

#### 2. Live Price / Market Data

```json
{
  "model": "google/gemini-2.5-flash",
  "messages": [
    { "role": "user", "content": "What is the current price of Bitcoin?" }
  ]
}

```

#### 3. Combining Search + Reasoning
 

```json
{
  "model": "google/gemini-2.5-flash",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "Search for the latest GPT-5 benchmarks and summarize how it compares to Claude Sonnet"
    }
  ]
}

```

#### 4. Technical / Developer Queries
 

```json
{
  "model": "google/gemini-2.5-flash",
  "messages": [
    { "role": "user", "content": "What are the breaking changes in Bun 2.0?" }
  ]
}

```

### Tips & Best Practices

| Tip                          | Details                                                                           |
| ---------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Ask naturally**            | No special syntax needed — the model detects when to search automatically         |
| **Be specific**              | "Latest React 19 release notes" works better than "React news"                    |
| **Date context helps**       | Adding "as of today" or "current" reinforces real-time lookup                     |
| **Streaming for UX**         | Use `stream: true` — answers start flowing within \~1s while search runs          |
| **Cost vs knowledge cutoff** | For questions within the model's training data, search won't trigger (saves cost) |
| **Citations in output**      | The model includes source links inline — these are real URLs from Perplexity      |

***

### Limitations

* Powered by `perplexity/sonar` — accuracy depends on Perplexity's index freshness
* No control over `numResults` from the request body — handled internally (default 5 citations)
* Does not return raw search results, only the synthesized Perplexity answer
* Adds latency (\~1–3s) compared to non-search requests
* `temperature` is fixed at `0.1` internally for factual accuracy — not overridable

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