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Open Net Worth Docs

Web search

Lucius can search the web and read a specific page when a question needs current information — a company’s latest news, a fund’s fee schedule, a public filing. The same search also powers background work: Intel’s news scans and the briefs it writes about your holdings.

It works out of the box. DuckDuckGo needs no account or key and is on from the start, so you only need this page if you want a different search provider.

Choosing a provider

ProviderGood forKey from
DuckDuckGoFree, no setup. Fine for occasional lookups; can be rate-limited under heavy use.No key needed
TavilySearch built for AI — returns clean page text. A good all-round upgrade.app.tavily.com
Perplexity (Sonar)Answers the question directly and lists the sources it used.Your Perplexity account → Settings → API (perplexity.ai/settings/api); needs API credit
SerperGoogle’s results, fast and low-cost.serper.dev/api-keys
Google Programmable SearchGoogle’s own search API. Needs an API key and a search engine ID.See Google Programmable Search
FirecrawlSearch plus full-page reading, including pages that only render with JavaScript. Pick it if page reads come back empty or blocked.firecrawl.dev/app/api-keys

The paid providers charge per search at their own rates; most have a free tier to start.

Set up a provider

  1. Create an account at the provider’s site (links above) and copy your API key.
  2. In Open Net Worth, open Connectors in the sidebar, click Browse & add, choose Web, click the provider’s card, then Add connector.
  3. Paste the key into API key. (Google also needs Search engine ID (cx) — see below.)
  4. Click Save.

The first paid provider you add becomes the default automatically — the one Lucius uses when you don’t name a provider. With several set up, open the one you want and click Make default at the bottom of its form (the provider’s page shows a Default tag when it’s the one in use).

Google needs two values:

  1. At programmablesearchengine.google.com, create a search engine set to search the entire web. Copy its Search engine ID.
  2. In the Google Cloud console, enable the Custom Search API for a project and create an API key under APIs & Services → Credentials.
  3. In the Google Programmable Search connector, paste the key into API key and the ID into Search engine ID (cx), then Save.

Check that it works

Ask Lucius:

Search the web for the latest news on the Fed’s interest-rate decision.

To try one provider specifically, name it: “Search with Tavily for…”. Each provider is its own tool, so Lucius can use the one you ask for even when it isn’t the default — the first time, he asks you to approve it (see Permissions below).

Reading a page

Ask Lucius to read a link — “read this page and summarise the fees: https://…” — and he fetches it through the default provider. Tavily and Firecrawl read the page on their own servers and return clean text. With the others, the page is downloaded directly from the machine running Open Net Worth.

Lucius won’t fetch addresses on your private network (such as localhost or 192.168.…) — only public web pages.

What’s sent

A search sends only the search text to the provider; reading a page sends only its address. Nothing about your accounts, balances or holdings is sent — although the search text itself may mention a company or ticker you asked about.

Because Intel’s background news scans and asset briefs also use the default provider, choosing a paid provider as default means those searches count against its quota and bill too.

Permissions

An ordinary “search the web for…” uses the default provider and runs without asking.

When Lucius uses one named provider — because you asked for it, or because he wants that provider’s strengths — he calls that provider’s own tool, and those start at Needs approval: the first time, you’ll see a card asking you to allow it. Choose Always allow there, or set the level under Tool permissions on that provider’s connector page. Each provider has its own levels, so you can trust one more than another — see Permissions.

To stop using a provider, open it and click Pause, or choose ⋯ (More actions) → Remove connector to delete its key.

Where your keys are stored

On this machine only. Keys are never sent to Lucius or the AI model, never included in an export, and left out of a sanitised backup. The API key field hides the saved key; you can reveal it with the eye icon to check it.

Troubleshooting

“Web search is not set up. Connect a provider in Connectors → Web.” — every provider is paused or removed. Resume DuckDuckGo or add another provider.

“Web search provider … has no API key configured.” — that provider was chosen but its key is missing. Open it and paste the key again.

Searches fail with an HTTP 401 or 403 error — the key is wrong, expired or out of credit. Check it on the provider’s site and paste it again.

DuckDuckGo results stop coming back — DuckDuckGo rate-limits heavy use. Wait a few minutes, or add a paid provider and make it the default.

A page reads back empty or blocked — the site may need JavaScript or block automated readers. Ask Lucius to read it with Firecrawl (“use Firecrawl to read…”), or add Firecrawl as a provider.

Google returns nothing — check Search engine ID (cx) is filled in and the engine is set to search the entire web.