pi-web-access-minimal

Minimal web search + URL fetching for the Pi coding agent. A stripped-down alternative to pi-web-access that keeps only the two core tools — saving ~5k tokens of context per search turn compared to pi-web-access, thanks to its smaller tool footprint.

• web_search — search via OpenAI (Responses API / Codex), Brave Search API, or Exa (keyless MCP — works with no API key at all). Returns an AI-synthesized answer with source citations. The provider is resolved from your config, automatically — the agent never picks one, which keeps tool descriptions (and token usage) small.
• fetch_content — fetch URLs and extract readable content as markdown. Supports raw HTTP bodies (mode: "raw"), page-local Q&A (mode: "answer"), direct images, GitHub repositories, and PDFs. Large content is paged via an offset parameter instead of a third retrieval tool.

No curator, no summary workflow, no multi-provider "all" mode, no background turn triggering.

Install

pi install npm:pi-web-access-minimal

Also available from source (pinned releases under Releases):

pi install git:github.com/chuanjin-su/pi-web-access-minimal
# or pin the release:
pi install git:github.com/chuanjin-su/pi-web-access-minimal@v0.1.0

To try it without installing:

pi -e npm:pi-web-access-minimal

Configure

Create ~/.pi/agent/web-search.json:

{
  "searchProvider": "brave"
}

All keys are optional — provider auth falls back to environment variables, and credential values accept $ENV_VAR, !command, or $$literal prefixes.

Search

Key	Meaning
searchProvider	"openai", "brave", or "exa". When set and its credentials exist, that provider is used; otherwise automatic fallback (openai → brave → exa) by credential availability. Exa is always available via its keyless MCP endpoint, so it is the zero-config default.
openaiApiKey	OpenAI API key. Falls back to OPENAI_API_KEY, or a Codex subscription via /login.
braveApiKey	Brave Search API key. Falls back to BRAVE_API_KEY.
exaApiKey	Exa API key (optional — keyless MCP search works without it, the API key removes rate limits). Falls back to EXA_API_KEY.
openaiResponsesUrl / openaiSearchModel / openaiSearchProviders	Advanced OpenAI Responses endpoint/model routing.
braveBaseUrl / exaBaseUrl	Override API base URLs (self-hosted/proxy); also read from BRAVE_BASE_URL / EXA_BASE_URL.

Fetching

Key	Meaning
proxy	HTTP(S)/SOCKS proxy URL for all outbound requests (direct access is blocked in many sandboxes).
maxInlineContentChars	First-slice size for fetched content (default 30000, max 200000).
fetch.timeout	HTTP fetch timeout in seconds (default 30).
fetch.answerProvider / fetch.answerModel	Model used by fetch_content mode: "answer" (defaults to the current Pi model).
fetchContent.domainPolicy	{ "allow": [...], "deny": [...] } hostname lists restricting what fetch_content may access.
ssrf.allowRanges / ssrf.trustEnvProxy	SSRF protections: explicitly allowed private IP ranges; whether the proxy may target private addresses.
authFetch	Browser-cookie authenticated fetch profiles, keyed by name: { "<name>": { "hosts": [...], "redirects": "same-origin", "cache": "session" | "off", "chromeProfile": "Default" } }. Used via the auth parameter.
image.enabled	Set false to disable image fetching.

PDFs

Key	Meaning
pdf.enabled	Set false to reject PDF URLs.
pdf.provider	"auto" (default) or "unpdf" (local extraction).
pdf.maxSizeMB / pdf.maxPages	PDF size and page-count limits (defaults 20 MB / 100 pages).

If a request fails at the configured provider, web_search automatically retries the remaining providers (exa is always available) before surfacing an error.

Content paging

fetch_content inlines at most maxInlineContentChars per result. When truncated, the result tells the agent to call again:

fetch_content({ url: "https://example.com/long-page", offset: 30000 })

Full content is cached in memory per session (keyed by URL, FIFO eviction at 50 entries). If auth is used with cache: "off", nothing is cached and the agent must re-fetch instead.

Differences from pi-web-access

Dropped: curator browser UI + summary review, source_check, get_search_content (replaced by the offset parameter), YouTube/local-video analysis, and the remaining search providers and third-party fetch backends (Parallel, TinyFish, Firecrawl, Jina Reader, Crawl4AI, Gemini web, …). PDFs use the local unpdf extractor. Kept near-verbatim: openai-search.ts, brave.ts, exa.ts (minus its inline-content handling, which the offset paging flow replaces), and the HTTP/GitHub/PDF extraction pipeline, so targeted upstream fixes can be ported easily.

Adding a provider later

1. Drop <provider>.ts into src/providers/ (copy one from pi-web-access).
2. Add the id to SearchProviderId / SEARCH_PROVIDERS in src/providers/types.ts.
3. Wire two lines into src/providers/search.ts (isProviderAvailable + the dispatch in search()).
4. Optionally accept it in searchProvider validation in src/config.ts.

Development

npm install
npx tsc        # typecheck
npm test       # node --test

MIT (© 2026 Chuanjin Su; provider/extraction code adapted from pi-web-access, MIT © Nico Bailon).