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Perplexity Search API

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Getting a Perplexity API key

1. Create a Perplexity account at perplexity.ai/settings/api
2. Generate an API key in the dashboard
3. Store the key in config or set PERPLEXITY_API_KEY in the Gateway environment.

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OpenRouter compatibility

• plugins.entries.perplexity.config.webSearch.baseUrl
• plugins.entries.perplexity.config.webSearch.model

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Config examples

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Native Perplexity Search API

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      perplexity: {
        config: {
          webSearch: {
            apiKey: "pplx-...",
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        provider: "perplexity",
      },
    },
  },
}

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OpenRouter / Sonar compatibility

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      perplexity: {
        config: {
          webSearch: {
            apiKey: "<openrouter-api-key>",
            baseUrl: "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1",
            model: "perplexity/sonar-pro",
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        provider: "perplexity",
      },
    },
  },
}

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Where to set the key

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Tool parameters

• query, count, and freshness are accepted
• count is compatibility-only there; the response is still one synthesized answer with citations rather than an N-result list
• Search API-only filters such as country, language, date_after, date_before, domain_filter, max_tokens, and max_tokens_per_page return explicit errors

// Country and language-specific search
await web_search({
  query: "renewable energy",
  country: "DE",
  language: "de",
});

// Recent results (past week)
await web_search({
  query: "AI news",
  freshness: "week",
});

// Date range search
await web_search({
  query: "AI developments",
  date_after: "2024-01-01",
  date_before: "2024-06-30",
});

// Domain filtering (allowlist)
await web_search({
  query: "climate research",
  domain_filter: ["nature.com", "science.org", ".edu"],
});

// Domain filtering (denylist - prefix with -)
await web_search({
  query: "product reviews",
  domain_filter: ["-reddit.com", "-pinterest.com"],
});

// More content extraction
await web_search({
  query: "detailed AI research",
  max_tokens: 50000,
  max_tokens_per_page: 4096,
});

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Domain filter rules

• Maximum 20 domains per filter
• Cannot mix allowlist and denylist in the same request
• Use - prefix for denylist entries (e.g., ["-reddit.com"])

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Notes

• Perplexity Search API returns structured web search results (title, url, snippet)
• OpenRouter or explicit plugins.entries.perplexity.config.webSearch.baseUrl / model switches Perplexity back to Sonar chat completions for compatibility
• Sonar/OpenRouter compatibility returns one synthesized answer with citations, not structured result rows
• Results are cached for 15 minutes by default (configurable via cacheTtlMinutes)

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Related

• Web Search overview — all providers and auto-detection
• Perplexity Search API docs — official Perplexity documentation
• Brave Search — structured results with country/language filters
• Exa Search — neural search with content extraction