Google Tools

Use the Google tool provider to run web searches via the Google Custom Search JSON API. This is useful in workflows that need up-to-date information from the web, research automation, or any step that requires fetching live search results based on a dynamic query.

Overview

Operations

Configuration

google_search

Outputs

google_search

• items (array) — Array of search result objects. Each item contains:
  • title (string) — Title of the search result page
  • link (string) — Full URL of the search result
  • snippet (string) — Short excerpt or description from the page
  • displayLink (string, optional) — The display-friendly URL shown in search results
  • pagemap (object, optional) — Additional structured metadata extracted from the page (e.g. images, metatags)
• searchInformation (object) — Metadata about the search execution:
  • totalResults (string) — Total number of results available for the query
  • searchTime (number) — Time taken to perform the search, in seconds
  • formattedSearchTime (string) — Human-readable formatted search time
  • formattedTotalResults (string) — Human-readable formatted total results count

YAML Example

google_1:
  type: google_search
  name: "Google Search"
  inputs:
    operation: "google_search"
    query: "{{starter.userQuestion}}"
    searchEngineId: "{{GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE_ID}}"
    apiKey: "{{GOOGLE_API_KEY}}"
    num: "10"
  connections:
    outgoing:
      - target: next-block-id

Tips

• Custom Search Engine setup is required — create a search engine at programmablesearchengine.google.com and enable it for the entire web. Copy the Search Engine ID (cx) into the searchEngineId parameter.
• Google Cloud API key — enable the "Custom Search API" in your Google Cloud project and generate an API key. Store it securely as {{GOOGLE_API_KEY}} in your workflow environment variables rather than hardcoding it.
• Maximum 10 results per call — the num parameter is capped at 10 by the Google Custom Search API. If you need more results, chain multiple search blocks with different start offsets, or refine your query to get higher-quality top results.