Web Search

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What it does

Web Search gives sideBar access to the live web. When your question requires current or real-time information, such as news, recent releases, live prices, or today’s weather outside your location, sideBar searches the web and incorporates the results into its response, citing its sources.

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Actions

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When sideBar uses it

sideBar uses Web Search automatically when it detects your question needs information it cannot answer from what it already knows. Common triggers:

• Questions about recent events or news (“What happened with X this week?”)
• Requests for current data (“What is the latest version of Y?”)
• Fact-checking or verifying something time-sensitive
• Research tasks where up-to-date sources matter

You don’t need to ask sideBar to search, it decides when a search would improve the response.

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Requirements

• Tier: Standard (included, no installation needed)
• Provider support: Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google on supported chat models
• API key: Uses the key for your selected AI provider

If you are using sideBar’s default hosted path, there is no extra setup. If you choose your own provider in Settings, Web Search uses that provider’s web search capability when the selected model supports it. OpenAI web search requires a GPT-5 or GPT-4.1 chat model. Google web search works on supported Gemini models, but mixed turns that combine Google Search with other sideBar tools require a Gemini 3 model.

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How to enable

Web Search is enabled by default. If you have turned it off and want to re-enable it, go to Settings → Skills and toggle Web Search on. If Web Search is enabled but your selected provider model does not support it, sideBar falls back to its normal non-search response path and explains the fallback in the assistant response.

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Examples

“What’s in the news today?”

“What are the best-reviewed noise cancelling headphones right now?”

“What’s the latest version of Python?”