mikeng-io/agent-skills/brave-search

Name: brave-search
Author: mikeng-io

Trust tier 3

community

Source check pending

Checking that the SKILL.md file is still in the repository.

Optional web search enrichment via Brave Search MCP. Provides web, news, and local search with an independent index (no Google dependency). Invokable standalone or called by deep-research, deep-explorer, or any skill needing web search. Non-blocking — falls back to other search tools if unavailable.

Install

npx vskill@latest install mikeng-io/agent-skills/brave-search

SKILL.md

Brave Search MCP — Optional Web Search Enrichment

This skill wraps the Brave Search MCP server to provide structured web, news, and local search capabilities. It is designed to be invoked by other skills or used standalone for general research.

Setup: Requires the Brave Search MCP server configured with a Brave Search API key.

bash

# Add to MCP config (one-time setup)
claude mcp add -s user brave-search npx @brave/search-mcp
# Then set: BRAVE_API_KEY=your_key_here
# Get a free API key at: https://brave.com/search/api/

Pre-Flight: Check Availability

yaml

ToolSearch: "brave-search"
  → Returns: mcp__brave-search__brave_web_search (and news, local, etc.)
  → If found: proceed to Step 1
  → If not found: return availability: "unavailable", fallback to other search tools

Non-blocking fallback chain: Brave Search → web-search-prime → WebFetch → Bash curl/wget

Step 1: Select Search Mode

Choose the appropriate Brave Search tool based on query type:

yaml

search_mode_selection:
  brave_web_search:
    trigger: General research, technical questions, documentation lookup
    tool: mcp__brave-search__brave_web_search
    returns: Web results with titles, URLs, descriptions
 
  brave_news_search:
    trigger: Recent events, breaking news, time-sensitive topics, announcements
    tool: mcp__brave-search__brave_news_search
    returns: News articles with publication dates and source attribution
 
  brave_local_search:
    trigger: Location-specific queries, "near me", city/region-scoped research
    tool: mcp__brave-search__brave_local_search
    returns: Local business/event results with location data
 
  brave_summarizer:
    trigger: "Summarize what the web says about X" — AI-distilled summary of top results
    tool: mcp__brave-search__brave_summarizer
    returns: Synthesized summary (does not return individual URLs — use when summary is enough)
 
  brave_video_search:
    trigger: Tutorial videos, conference talks, demo recordings
    tool: mcp__brave-search__brave_video_search
 
  brave_image_search:
    trigger: Visual content, diagrams, charts, screenshots
    tool: mcp__brave-search__brave_image_search

Step 2: Execute Queries

Run 1-5 queries depending on research scope. Parallel execution is fine for independent queries.

Query best practices:

Be specific: "Kafka consumer group rebalancing Go" not just "Kafka"
Use quotes for exact phrases: "distributed tracing" "OpenTelemetry"
Add year for recent content: OpenTelemetry Go 2025
For news: use brave_news_search with a shorter, more topic-focused query

Example usage:

# Web search
mcp__brave-search__brave_web_search(query="OpenTelemetry Go SDK distributed tracing 2025", count=10)
 
# News search
mcp__brave-search__brave_news_search(query="Kubernetes security CVE 2025", count=5)
 
# Local search
mcp__brave-search__brave_local_search(query="blockchain conferences San Francisco 2025")

Step 3: Process Results

For each result, extract and structure:

json

{
  "source": "brave-search",
  "search_mode": "web | news | local | summarizer | video | image",
  "query": "the query executed",
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "Result title",
      "url": "https://actual-content-url",
      "description": "Excerpt or description",
      "published_date": "2025-01-15",    // news results
      "credibility": "HIGH | MEDIUM | LOW",
      "key_points": ["Extracted insight 1", "Extracted insight 2"]
    }
  ],
  "availability": "available",
  "result_count": 10
}

Credibility assessment:

HIGH: Official docs, academic papers, recognized industry authorities
MEDIUM: Established company blogs, tech publications, conference proceedings
LOW: Personal blogs, forums, social media, unverified sources

Calling Context Integration

When invoked by `deep-research`

Return structured results for integration into the domain researcher's findings. Multi-search strategy: run Brave Web and Brave News in parallel for each domain query to get broader coverage.

When invoked by `context` skill (optional enrichment)

Use brave_web_search with 1-2 queries to detect current technology patterns, framework versions, or industry terminology signals that supplement domain selection.

When invoked standalone

Execute queries, return structured results with source attribution. Suitable for quick research tasks that don't require the full deep-research pipeline.

Output

json

{
  "skill": "brave-search",
  "availability": "available | unavailable",
  "queries_executed": ["list of queries"],
  "search_modes_used": ["web", "news"],
  "results": [...],
  "result_count": 15,
  "fallback_used": false
}

If unavailable:

json

{
  "skill": "brave-search",
  "availability": "unavailable",
  "reason": "MCP server not configured",
  "setup_hint": "claude mcp add -s user brave-search npx @brave/search-mcp"
}

Why Brave Search?

Independent index: Not Google — provides genuine search diversity
Privacy-first: No tracking or personalization affecting results
API quality: Structured JSON responses with rich metadata
News freshness: Separate news endpoint with publication dates
No rate limiting drama: Paid API with predictable quotas
Local search: Useful for geo-specific research without extra configuration

Security

Security scanPassed, 100 of 100Pattern checks on the skill's files.
Model reviewPassed

See the full security report

Quality evaluation

Task evaluationNot runNo evaluation yet. Run one in Skill Studio.

See evaluation results

Source

SKILL.md in the repositoryCheckingskills/brave-search/SKILL.md

Popularity

Repository stars: 6
7-day trend score: 10

Stars and forks are for the whole GitHub repository, not this skill alone. Refreshed 24 Mar 2026, 7 months ago.

Works with

Any agent vskill installs to: 56 targets in all. These 39 have a page on this site.

Claude Code
Cursor
GitHub Copilot
Windsurf
Codex
Gemini CLI
Cline
Amp
Roo Code
Goose
Continue
Kilo Code
Junie
Trae
OpenHands
Qwen Code
AI Agent
Tabnine Chat
Sourcegraph Cody
Amazon Q
Firebase Genkit
Sweep
Devin
Phind
Mentat
Claude Desktop
Aider
GPT Pilot
Plandex
bolt.new
v0
Replit Agent
Anse
TypingMind
BetterChatGPT
LibreChat
Warp AI
Pieces
Fig AI

Embed badge

[![vskill VERIFIED](https://verified-skill.com/api/v1/skills/mikeng-io/agent-skills/brave-search/badge)](https://verified-skill.com/skills/mikeng-io/agent-skills/brave-search)

Something wrong with this skill or its page? Tell us.

Install

SKILL.md

Brave Search MCP — Optional Web Search Enrichment

Pre-Flight: Check Availability

Step 1: Select Search Mode

Step 2: Execute Queries

Step 3: Process Results

Calling Context Integration

When invoked by deep-research

When invoked by context skill (optional enrichment)

When invoked standalone

Output

Why Brave Search?

Security

Quality evaluation

Source

Popularity

Works with

When invoked by `deep-research`

When invoked by `context` skill (optional enrichment)