Strands Perplexity

A Strands Agents tool for performing real-time web searches using the Perplexity Search API.

Features

• 🔍 Real-time web search - Access ranked web search results from Perplexity's continuously refreshed index
• 📝 Citations included - Every result includes URLs for proper attribution
• 🌍 Regional search - Filter results by country using ISO country codes
• 🔤 Language filtering - Filter results by language using ISO 639-1 codes
• 🌐 Domain filtering - Include or exclude specific domains from results
• 📊 Multi-query support - Execute up to 5 related queries in a single request

Installation

pip install strands-perplexity

Configuration

Set your Perplexity API key as an environment variable:

export PERPLEXITY_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"

You can get an API key from the Perplexity API Settings.

Usage

Basic Usage with Strands Agent

from strands import Agent
from strands_perplexity import perplexity_search

# Create an agent with the Perplexity search tool
agent = Agent(tools=[perplexity_search])

# The agent can now search the web
response = agent("What are the latest developments in AI?")
print(response)

Direct Tool Usage

from strands_perplexity import perplexity_search, perplexity_multi_search

# Basic search
results = perplexity_search(query="artificial intelligence trends 2024")
for result in results["results"]:
    print(f"{result['title']}: {result['url']}")

# Search with domain filter (allowlist)
results = perplexity_search(
    query="climate change research",
    search_domain_filter=["science.org", "nature.com", "cell.com"],
    max_results=10
)

# Search with domain filter (denylist)
results = perplexity_search(
    query="renewable energy innovations",
    search_domain_filter=["-pinterest.com", "-reddit.com", "-quora.com"]
)

# Regional search
results = perplexity_search(
    query="government policies on renewable energy",
    country="US",
    max_results=5
)

# Language-filtered search
results = perplexity_search(
    query="latest AI news",
    search_language_filter=["en", "fr", "de"]
)

# Multi-query search for comprehensive research
results = perplexity_multi_search(
    queries=[
        "artificial intelligence trends 2024",
        "machine learning breakthroughs recent",
        "AI applications in healthcare"
    ],
    max_results=5
)

API Reference

perplexity_search

Search the web using Perplexity's Search API.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
query	str	Required	The search query string
max_results	int	5	Maximum results to return (1-20)
max_tokens_per_page	int	2048	Maximum tokens to extract per webpage
max_tokens	int	25000	Maximum total tokens across all results
search_domain_filter	list[str]	None	Domains to include or exclude (max 20)
search_language_filter	list[str]	None	ISO 639-1 language codes (max 10)
country	str	None	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code

Returns:

{
    "query": "your search query",
    "search_id": "unique-search-id",
    "results": [
        {
            "title": "Page Title",
            "url": "https://example.com/page",
            "snippet": "Extracted content from the page...",
            "date": "2024-01-15",
            "last_updated": "2024-01-20"
        },
        # ... more results
    ],
    "result_count": 5
}

perplexity_multi_search

Execute multiple search queries in a single request.

Parameters:

Same as perplexity_search, except:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
queries	list[str]	Required	List of search queries (max 5)

Returns:

{
    "queries": ["query1", "query2", "query3"],
    "search_id": "unique-search-id",
    "results": [
        [  # Results for query1
            {"title": "...", "url": "...", "snippet": "..."},
            # ...
        ],
        [  # Results for query2
            {"title": "...", "url": "...", "snippet": "..."},
            # ...
        ],
        # ...
    ],
    "result_count": 15  # Total across all queries
}

Domain Filtering

The search_domain_filter parameter supports two modes:

Allowlist Mode (include only specified domains)

results = perplexity_search(
    query="AI research",
    search_domain_filter=["arxiv.org", "openai.com", "deepmind.com"]
)

Denylist Mode (exclude specified domains)

Use a - prefix to exclude domains:

results = perplexity_search(
    query="AI news",
    search_domain_filter=["-pinterest.com", "-facebook.com"]
)

Note: You cannot mix allowlist and denylist modes in the same request.

Best Practices

1. Write specific queries - Use detailed queries with context for better results:

   # Better
   perplexity_search(query="artificial intelligence medical diagnosis accuracy 2024")
   
   # Avoid
   perplexity_search(query="AI medical")

2. Use multi-query for research - When exploring a topic, use related queries:

   perplexity_multi_search(queries=[
       "quantum computing current state 2024",
       "quantum computing practical applications",
       "quantum computing vs classical computing advantages"
   ])

3. Adjust token budgets - Use lower max_tokens_per_page for quick lookups:

   # Quick lookup
   perplexity_search(query="Python release date", max_tokens_per_page=512)
   
   # Deep research
   perplexity_search(query="Python GIL removal proposal", max_tokens_per_page=2048)

Error Handling

from strands_perplexity import perplexity_search, PerplexitySearchError

try:
    results = perplexity_search(query="AI news")
except PerplexitySearchError as e:
    print(f"Search failed: {e}")

Common errors:

• Missing PERPLEXITY_API_KEY environment variable
• API rate limits exceeded
• Invalid parameters (e.g., more than 5 queries in multi-search)

Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/mkmeral/strands-perplexity
cd strands-perplexity
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Running Tests

hatch run test

Running All Checks

hatch run prepare  # Runs format, lint, typecheck, and test

License

Apache 2.0 - see LICENSE for details.

Resources

• Perplexity Search API Documentation
• Perplexity Search Best Practices
• Strands Agents Documentation
• Strands Agents SDK