Tavily CLI
Web search, content extraction, site crawling, URL discovery, and deep research. Returns JSON optimized for LLM consumption.
Requires tavily-cli. Search and extract support capped keyless access; map,
crawl, and research require authentication.
Run tvly --help or tvly <command> --help for full option details.
Setup
If tvly is not installed:
bashcurl -fsSL https://cli.tavily.com/install.sh | bash
Or manually: uv tool install tavily-cli / pip install tavily-cli
For agent setup, start keyless unless the user asks to sign in or the requested task needs map, crawl, or research. If the installer did not already complete setup, run:
bashtvly init --skip-auth
This installs or updates the Tavily skills and verifies a live keyless search. Do not look for an API key or authenticate before the first search or extract request.
When authentication is requested or required, use guided setup:
bashtvly init # Prefer to open the sign-in link yourself tvly init --no-browser
tvly init reuses an existing credential, installs or updates the Tavily
skills bundled with that CLI release, and verifies a live search. Run tvly update first when refreshing bundled skills. Use tvly init --skip-skills
when the skills are already installed and only authentication or verification
is needed.
Search and extract can run immediately without authentication, subject to a
keyless rate-limit cap. If either command reaches that cap in an interactive
session, run tvly login to open browser OAuth, then retry the original command
once. In an unattended environment, report the cap and authentication options
instead of starting an interactive flow. Map, crawl, and research require
authentication. Check the current state only when needed with tvly --status --json.
For authentication without full setup, use tvly login, tvly login --no-browser, tvly login --api-key tvly-YOUR_KEY, or TAVILY_API_KEY.
Browser-based OAuth is the preferred interactive sign-in method. --no-browser
simply prints the sign-in link instead of opening it automatically; the flow
still returns to a localhost callback on the machine running tvly. In remote
sessions, make sure that callback is reachable (SSH may require port
forwarding). In an unattended agent or CI environment, leave authentication to
the user or use a securely provided TAVILY_API_KEY, then resume the original
command.
Keep an existing installation current with tvly update --check and tvly update.
Workflow
Follow this escalation pattern — start simple, escalate when needed:
- Search — No specific URL. Find pages, answer questions, discover sources.
- Extract — Have a URL. Pull its content directly.
- Map — Large site, need to find the right page. Discover URLs first.
- Crawl — Need bulk content from an entire site section.
- Research — Need comprehensive, multi-source analysis with citations.
| Need | Command | When |
|---|---|---|
| Find pages on a topic | tvly search | No specific URL yet |
| Get a page's content | tvly extract | Have a URL |
| Find URLs within a site | tvly map | Need to locate a specific subpage |
| Bulk extract a site section | tvly crawl | Need many pages (e.g., all /docs/) |
| Deep research with citations | tvly research | Need multi-source synthesis |
For detailed command reference, use the individual skill for each command (e.g., tavily-search, tavily-crawl) or run tvly <command> --help.
Run tvly without a subcommand for the interactive REPL.
Output
Search, extract, crawl, map, and research support --json for structured output.
Result-producing commands support -o to save the JSON response; crawl also
supports --output-dir for one Markdown file per page. Setup, authentication,
status, and update commands expose --json where documented but do not support
-o.
bashtvly search "react hooks" --json -o results.json tvly extract "https://example.com/docs" -o docs.json tvly crawl "https://docs.example.com" --output-dir ./docs/
Tips
- Always quote URLs — shell interprets
?and&as special characters. - Use
--jsonfor agentic workflows when the selected command exposes it. - Read from stdin with
-—echo "query" | tvly search - - Exit codes: 0 = success, 1 = setup/update failure, 2 = bad input, 3 = auth error, 4 = API or live-verification error.
