Using OpenAI’s Web Search Tool with AG2#

OpenAI’s latest GPT models—such as gpt-4.1 and gpt-4o-suffix support a powerful, built-in web_search_preview tool that enables real-time web access.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to integrate and use web_search_preview within the AG2 framework.

Installation#

Install AG2 with the openai extra.

pip install -U ag2[openai]

Note: If you have been using autogen or ag2, all you need to do is upgrade it using:
pip install -U autogen[openai]
or
pip install -U ag2[openai]
as autogen, and ag2 are aliases for the same PyPI package.

You’re all set! Now you can start using web_search_preview with AG2.

Imports#

from typing import Literal

from pydantic import BaseModel

from autogen import AssistantAgent, LLMConfig
from autogen.tools.experimental.web_search_preview import WebSearchPreviewTool

Using WebSearchPreviewTool#

Now let’s create a WebSearchPreviewTool that will search the web and return the OpenAPI specification for a desired API (e.g., GitHub, WhatsApp, etc.).

The tool is configured to: - Search for a raw OpenAPI specification file in JSON or YAML format. - Return a structured response that matches the OpenAPISpec class, which includes: - The source page where the spec was found. - A direct URL to the OpenAPI file. - A relevance score (1–5).

This makes it easy to retrieve usable API definitions for further automated processing or integration.

llm_config = LLMConfig.from_json(path="OAI_CONFIG_LIST")

agent = AssistantAgent(
    name="assistant",
    llm_config=llm_config,
)

class OpenAPISpec(BaseModel):
    source_url: str
    openapi_spec_url: str
    result_score: Literal[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

tool = WebSearchPreviewTool(
    llm_config=llm_config,
    instructions="""Find a url with opeanapi specification for the wanted api. The specification must be in JSON or YAML format.
I need a link to raw file (because I will use it in curl command).

Output should be just:

Source: <url> (where te openapi specification was found)
OpenAPI Specification URL: <url>

- make sure that the url which you found is not returning 4xx error, otherwise you will be penalized!
- do not give up easily, try to find the url in different ways
- do not use markdown [url](<url>) format""",
    text_format=OpenAPISpec,
)
tool.register_for_llm(agent)

Start Searching#

This loop demonstrates how to automatically search for OpenAPI specifications for a list of popular APIs. For each API name, the assistant runs a web search using the configured WebSearchPreviewTool

apis = ["github", "whatsapp", "trello", "giphy", "pokemon"]
for api in apis:
    response = agent.run(
        message=f"Let's find a url with openapi specification for {api}.",
        tools=agent.tools,
        user_input=False,
        max_turns=3,
    )
    response.process()
    print("-" * 40)