Web search

Skill happycastle114/gemini-search/skills/web-search

Search the web for current information using Gemini CLI with Google Search grounding. Use when you need real-time data, latest documentation, current events, or to verify claims against live sources. Triggers on "search the web", "look up", "find online", "what's the latest", "current version of", "recent news about".From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add happycastle114/gemini-search --skill web-search

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

0 stars0 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

SKILL.md

3.8 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Web Search via Gemini CLI

Search the web using Google's Gemini CLI with built-in Google Search grounding. Returns accurate, cited results with source URLs.

Prerequisites

Install Gemini CLI globally:

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli

Authenticate once:

gemini

Quick Usage

Run the bundled gemini-search script from this plugin's bin/ directory:

gemini-search "your search query"

The script automatically:

Wraps your query with a search-optimized system prompt
Forces Gemini to use google_web_search for grounding
Parses the JSON response and formats clean markdown with citations

Always Use The Wrapper

Always invoke web search through gemini-search. Do not call gemini directly. The wrapper provides:

Per-invocation privacy override (privacy.usageStatisticsEnabled=false) without touching ~/.gemini/settings.json
Mandatory inline [Source](url) citation enforcement and ## Sources heading validation — direct gemini calls have no such guarantee
Prompt-injection fencing for the user query
Hardened timeout / buffer defaults and friendly ENOENT error
Cleanup-safe temp dir on success, error, and SIGINT/SIGTERM

Direct gemini --output-format json --prompt ... invocation bypasses all of the above and must not be used from Claude Code workflows.

Search Prompt Patterns

Fact Lookup

Search the web for the current LTS version of Node.js.
Include the release date and end-of-life date.
Cite your sources.

Comparison Research

Search the web and compare Bun vs Deno runtime performance benchmarks from 2025.
Include specific numbers and link to the benchmark sources.

Documentation Lookup

Search for the official documentation on React Server Components streaming.
Find the API reference page and summarize the key props and usage patterns.

Security Advisory Check

Search for recent security advisories for the 'express' npm package.
List CVE numbers, severity, and affected versions.

API/Library Version Check

Search for the latest version of @anthropic-ai/sdk and list breaking changes
from the previous major version. Include migration guide links if available.

Model Routing

gemini-search intentionally does not expose a model flag. Gemini CLI chooses the model using its own routing, your account tier, and your ~/.gemini/settings.json configuration.

If you need to pin a model, set it in ~/.gemini/settings.json under the model.name key — see the Gemini CLI configuration reference. Do not pass -m to gemini-search; unknown flags now error out.

Privacy

Every gemini-search invocation auto-disables Gemini CLI usage statistics (privacy.usageStatisticsEnabled: false) via a temporary system-override settings file. Your ~/.gemini/settings.json and OAuth credentials are not modified. See the project README "Privacy" section for the auth-tier truth table — note that this CLI flag is not by itself a model-training opt-out on free OAuth or free Gemini API tiers.

Tips

Be specific — "React 19 useActionState hook API" beats "React hooks"
Include time context — "2025 Node.js performance benchmarks" gets recent results
Ask for sources — The search prompt already forces citations, but being explicit helps
Chain searches — Run multiple targeted queries rather than one broad query
Use --raw for scripting — gemini-search --raw "query" | jq '.response' for pipelines