modsearch

# ModSearch — Search & Fetch Bridge Skill

Use this skill when:

- The user asks about anything after your knowledge cutoff (releases, news, prices, versions)
- The answer needs source links or verifiable external facts
- The user asks what people are saying on X or Twitter (推特, 推文, tweets, threads)
- The user gives a URL to read and the harness has no fetch tool
- The user asks how to configure modsearch, add a key, or change engines

Do not use this skill for:

- Analyzing images (that is `modlens`)
- Questions your own knowledge answers reliably and time does not affect

## Prerequisites

Run every modsearch command through the launcher bundled with this skill.
Replace `<skill-dir>` with the directory this SKILL.md lives in:

```bash
bash <skill-dir>/scripts/run.sh -q "test"                                       # macOS / Linux
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File <skill-dir>\scripts\run.ps1 -q "test"  # Windows
```

The launcher finds a working way to run modsearch and forwards your arguments to it unchanged. It tries, in order: a compatible `modsearch` already on `PATH`, then `npx`, then `bunx`. If none of those exists it prints a JSON diagnosis to stderr and exits 78, with a `nextSteps` list for the user. Relay those steps instead of retrying. To see the full diagnosis, run `bash <skill-dir>/scripts/run.sh doctor --json` (on a machine that can launch the CLI it also chains modsearch's own engine/config `doctor`).

Nothing else needs setting up first: modsearch works with no config file. Web search and page fetch run out of the box on Firecrawl's keyless free quota (no signup, no key), and a configured engine or API key takes precedence when present.

### If you cannot run the launcher script

Some harnesses forbid running scripts. Reason through the same order by hand and run the first line that works (the pinned version is 5.10.0):

1. A `modsearch` on `PATH` whose major version is 5 and is at least 5.10.0: `modsearch <args>`.
2. Otherwise, if `npx` exists: `npx --yes --package @liustack/modsearch@5.10.0 modsearch <args>`.
3. Otherwise, if `bunx` exists: `bunx --bun @liustack/modsearch@5.10.0 <args>`.
4. Otherwise none of these runtimes is here. Tell the user no JavaScript runtime was found and that installing Node 22.13+ (https://nodejs.org) or Bun (https://bun.sh) is the next step. Do not claim modsearch itself failed.

`references/runtime.md` documents the version pin, the compatibility rule, and the diagnostic fields.

## Commands

In the examples below, `modsearch` means the command run through the launcher above (`bash <skill-dir>/scripts/run.sh ...`, or the PowerShell form on Windows).

```bash
modsearch -q "<query>"                 # search the web
modsearch -q "<query>" --source x      # search X instead
modsearch -q "<query>" --source web,x  # both, kept separate in the output
modsearch -u "<url>"                   # fetch one page
modsearch -u "<url>" -q "<focus>"      # fetch with an extraction focus
```

Optional flags: `-o <file>` also writes the JSON, `--timeout <ms>` raises the time budget, and `-e <engine>` forces exactly one engine with no fallback, so leave it off unless the user wants one specific engine. The full flag table, with defaults and the config commands, is in `references/cli.md`.

An X-flavored query (twitter, tweet, 推特, 推文, x.com, "on X") goes to X on its own, and only to X, because a web index cannot see inside X. Pass `--source web,x` when the user wants both.

A run takes 10-30 seconds on the agent-loop engines and 2-3 seconds on the direct API ones. Do not treat silence as a hang before the timeout.

## Roles and engines

Three jobs, each with its own engines:

| Role | Engines (best first) | Notes |
| :-- | :-- | :-- |
| search the web | `firecrawl`, `antigravity-cli`, `tavily`, `exa` | Firecrawl works keyless with no signup (1,000 free credits/month). agy is free with a browser sign-in. Tavily, Exa, and a free Firecrawl key add personal quotas. |
| fetch a page | `firecrawl`, `antigravity-cli`, `local` | Firecrawl runs a cloud browser, keyless by default (`firecrawl.keylessFetch false` opts out). `local` needs nothing and is the default floor. |
| search X | `grok-cli` | Needs Grok Build with SuperGrok or X Premium. |

modsearch picks per role from what is installed and falls through on failure, so do not probe first: run the command and read `results[].engine` to see who answered.

- Page fetch has the built-in `local` engine as its zero-setup floor unless the user explicitly disabled it with `local.enabled false`, or forced a different engine with `-e`. It returns the page as served, with no summary and no focus narrowing, so pick out the relevant parts yourself. Very little text back means the page is JavaScript-rendered, which that engine does not run: it says so in `uncertainty`, so say the same rather than claiming the page is empty.
- An X question answered by a web engine means Grok Build is not set up. That entry reads `status: "degraded"`, `requestedSource: "x"`, `source: "web"`, with the reason in `warnings`. Relay that caveat instead of presenting it as X coverage. On a `--source web,x` run where X is unreachable, the X slot comes back as a separate entry with `status: "unavailable"` and empty `items`, so the gap is explicit: report that X could not be reached rather than treating the web entry as if it covered X.
- Quota cooldown failover is on by default. When an engine hits its quota, modsearch moves it to the back of the chain until it recovers and fails over to a healthy engine, noting who is cooling and until when in `warnings`. A cooling engine is never dropped, only tried last, so it still answers when everything else fails. `modsearch state clear` forgets the cooldowns, `modsearch config set cooldown off` disables the behavior, and `modsearch doctor` shows what is cooling.
- Setup and key questions: follow `references/configure.md` and run the commands for the user.

## Workflow

1. Search first with `-q` to get candi