Search and Retrieval APIs
Use Brave Search API with CrewAI
Brave Search API connects to CrewAI through a built in by the framework vendor path (crewai_tools BraveSearchTool). This page records what that connection looks like and links the evidence behind it.
Pairing facts
Why this pairing
An independent search index exposed as APIs for web, news, images, video, places, and LLM-ready context for agent grounding.
Best for: Agents that want an independent search index, not a resold one Retrieval pipelines that use LLM Context to ground answers Local and place lookups alongside general web search
Not ideal for: Fetching and cleaning arbitrary URLs (that is a reader tool job) Deep research synthesis you do not want to write yourself
Configuration
from crewai_tools import BraveSearchToolSource: https://github.com/crewaiinc/crewai/issues/3544. Examples use placeholders only.
Evidence
A fetched CrewAI repository issue prints the crewai_tools import list and includes BraveSearchTool, BrowserbaseLoadTool, ApifyActorsTool and ComposioTool.
https://github.com/crewaiinc/crewai/issues/3544
Compatibility here means the cited page documents the pairing. It does not mean AgentsUse benchmarked the combination or that every version works unchanged. Pin versions, run the tool on a small job first, and review the first outputs before widening access.
Watch for
- Discovery only: pair with a fetch or extraction tool to read chosen pages.
- Some result enrichments, like extra snippets and full local search, require Pro-level plans.