Web Search

Use the Tavily Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to add web search to workflows. Alternatives such as Exa, SerpAPI, and Brave Search also exist, but this page covers Tavily.

Tavily Search

Tavily provides structured JSON search results, news search, and an MCP server at @tavily/mcp.

---
on: issues

engine: copilot

mcp-servers:
  tavily:
    command: npx
    args: ["-y", "@tavily/mcp"]
    env:
      TAVILY_API_KEY: "${{ secrets.TAVILY_API_KEY }}"
    allowed: ["search", "search_news"]
---

# Search and Respond

Search the web for information about: ${{ github.event.issue.title }}

Use the tavily search tool to find recent information.

Setup

Sign up at tavily.com to get an API key, then add it as a repository secret:

gh aw secrets set TAVILY_API_KEY --value "<your-api-key>"

Review the Tavily Terms of Service, then test the workflow with gh aw mcp inspect <workflow>.

Tool Discovery

Inspect the workflow to see which Tavily tools are available:

# Inspect the MCP server in your workflow
gh aw mcp inspect my-workflow --server tavily

# List tools with details
gh aw mcp list-tools tavily my-workflow --verbose

Network Permissions

Agentic workflows require explicit network permissions for MCP servers:

network:
  allowed:
    - defaults
    - "*.tavily.com"

MCP Integration - Complete MCP server guide
Tools - Tool configuration reference
AI Engines - Engine capabilities and limitations
CLI Commands - CLI commands including mcp inspect
Model Context Protocol Specification
Tavily MCP Server
Tavily Documentation