Add live web search to an AutoGen agent

AutoGen's AssistantAgent accepts any list of tools — MCP adapters from mcp_server_tools() for all five tools at once, or individual FunctionTool wrappers over the REST API for controlled spend.

Two paths

Path 1: MCP via mcp_server_tools (recommended for autonomous agents)

pip install "autogen-agentchat" "autogen-ext[openai,mcp]"

import asyncio, os
from autogen_ext.models.openai import OpenAIChatCompletionClient
from autogen_ext.tools.mcp import StdioServerParams, mcp_server_tools
from autogen_agentchat.agents import AssistantAgent
from autogen_core import CancellationToken

async def main() -> None:
    server_params = StdioServerParams(
        command="npx",
        args=["-y", "superhighway-mcp"],
        env={
            "AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY": os.environ["AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY"],
            "X402_NETWORK": "base",
        },
    )
    # Returns a list of StdioMcpToolAdapter — one per available tool
    tools = await mcp_server_tools(server_params)

    agent = AssistantAgent(
        name="search_agent",
        model_client=OpenAIChatCompletionClient(model="gpt-4o"),
        tools=tools,
        system_message="You are a research assistant with access to live web search.",
    )

    result = await agent.run(
        task="What are the latest developments in AI agent frameworks?",
        cancellation_token=CancellationToken(),
    )
    print(result.messages[-1].content)

asyncio.run(main())

AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY is the private key of a wallet with USDC on Base. Each call costs $0.001 and settles automatically via the x402 protocol — no signup, no API key, no human in the loop. mcp_server_tools() is async and returns one StdioMcpToolAdapter per tool, giving the agent all five tools: web_search, news_search, image_search, scrape, and research.

Path 2: FunctionTool with an API key

AutoGen's FunctionTool wraps any async (or sync) Python function. The description string — not the docstring — is what the model sees when deciding whether to call the tool.

pip install "autogen-agentchat" "autogen-ext[openai]" requests

import asyncio, os
import requests as _requests
from autogen_core.tools import FunctionTool
from autogen_ext.models.openai import OpenAIChatCompletionClient
from autogen_agentchat.agents import AssistantAgent
from autogen_core import CancellationToken

BASE = "https://superhighway.walls.sh"
HEADERS = {"X-Api-Key": os.environ["SUPERHIGHWAY_API_KEY"]}

async def web_search(query: str, limit: int = 5) -> dict:
    return _requests.get(f"{BASE}/search", params={"q": query, "limit": limit}, headers=HEADERS).json()

async def news_search(query: str, limit: int = 5) -> dict:
    return _requests.get(f"{BASE}/news", params={"q": query, "limit": limit}, headers=HEADERS).json()

async def research(query: str, pages: int = 3) -> dict:
    return _requests.get(f"{BASE}/research", params={"q": query, "pages": pages}, headers=HEADERS).json()

async def main() -> None:
    tools = [
        FunctionTool(web_search, description="Search the live web for current information and return ranked results."),
        FunctionTool(news_search, description="Search for recent news articles with published dates."),
        FunctionTool(research, description="Search the web and read top pages for deep synthesis."),
    ]

    agent = AssistantAgent(
        name="search_agent",
        model_client=OpenAIChatCompletionClient(model="gpt-4o"),
        tools=tools,
        system_message="You are a research assistant with access to live web search.",
    )

    result = await agent.run(
        task="What changed in the latest Python release?",
        cancellation_token=CancellationToken(),
    )
    print(result.messages[-1].content)

asyncio.run(main())

The key AutoGen pattern: FunctionTool(func, description="...") separates the tool description from the function's docstring — the model uses the description= argument, not the Python docstring. Functions can be sync or async. AssistantAgent takes model_client= (not model=).

Which tools are available

Full API reference: /openapi.json. Get a free API key or learn the x402 wallet flow.