Search providers

anton setup-search configures an external search provider so the web_search tool works on LLM endpoints that don't ship native search.

When you need it

Only when your LLM provider is a generic OpenAI-compatible endpoint (Together, Groq, Ollama, vLLM, OpenRouter, and similar). Anthropic, OpenAI, and Minds (mdb.ai) all execute web search natively on your existing LLM key — no extra setup, and setup-search is unnecessary. See Web search for the full provider matrix.

When anton setup finishes configuring a custom OpenAI-compatible endpoint, it offers this step automatically. You can run it again at any time:

anton setup-search

Choosing a provider

Provider	Character	Get a key at
Exa.ai	AI-native semantic search	dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys
Brave Search	privacy-focused web search	api.search.brave.com/app/keys

The setup screen shows which provider (if any) is currently configured, with a masked tail of the active key so you can recognize it without exposing it.

Key validation

Anton validates the key before saving it: it makes a small probe call to the provider's search API and checks the response. If authentication fails or the service errors, you can:

• retry — re-enter the key for the same provider (fix a typo without re-picking from the menu),
• switch — go back to the picker and try the other provider,
• skip — disable web_search for now.

Switching providers

Re-run anton setup-search and pick the other provider. The previously stored key for the old provider is left in place; only the active provider selection changes.

Skipping

Choosing Skip disables web_search — the tool stays unavailable until you run anton setup-search again. If a working provider is already configured, Anton asks for confirmation before clearing it, so a stray keystroke can't wipe a working setup.

Where the key lives

The provider choice and key are persisted to the global ~/.anton/.env (as ANTON_EXTERNAL_SEARCH_PROVIDER plus ANTON_EXA_API_KEY or ANTON_BRAVE_API_KEY), so they survive across sessions and workspaces — the same scope as your LLM keys. See Environment variables.