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Perplexity (Web Search Provider)

The Perplexity plugin provides web search capabilities through the Perplexity Search API or Perplexity Sonar via OpenRouter.
This page covers the Perplexity provider setup. For the Perplexity tool (how the agent uses it), see Perplexity tool.
  • Type: web search provider (not a model provider)
  • Auth: PERPLEXITY_API_KEY (direct) or OPENROUTER_API_KEY (via OpenRouter)
  • Config path: tools.web.search.perplexity.apiKey

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Quick start

  1. Set the API key:
openclaw config set tools.web.search.perplexity.apiKey "pplx-xxxxxxxxxxxx"
  1. The agent will automatically use Perplexity for web searches when configured.

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Search modes

The plugin auto-selects the transport based on API key prefix:
Key prefixTransportFeatures
pplx-Native Perplexity Search APIStructured results, domain/language/date filters
sk-or-OpenRouter (Sonar)AI-synthesized answers with citations

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Native API filtering

When using the native Perplexity API (pplx- key), searches support:
  • Country: 2-letter country code
  • Language: ISO 639-1 language code
  • Date range: day, week, month, year
  • Domain filters: allowlist/denylist (max 20 domains)
  • Content budget: max_tokens, max_tokens_per_page

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Environment note

If the Gateway runs as a daemon (launchd/systemd), make sure PERPLEXITY_API_KEY is available to that process (for example, in ~/.openclaw/.env or via env.shellEnv).