1 Functionality
2 Input
3 Output
4 Configuration settings (technical)
- 4.1 Reference in Code
- 4.2 Web Search Config
  - 4.2.1 Bing Search API
    - 4.2.1.1 Bing Custom Search Config
  - 4.2.2 Google Search API
    - 4.2.2.1 Google Custom Search Config
  - 4.2.3 Data Source Config
  - 4.2.4 Answer Generation Config
  - 4.2.5 Query Generation Config
  - 4.2.6 Configuraion Example
- 4.3 Definition

Functionality

This module is designed to answer a user query based on web pages retrieved using a web search engine. The module behaves as a standard GPT but has access to a web search tool. When the user asks a question that the model doesn’t know the answer, it executes the following workflow:

Formulates a search query optimized for search engines (based on the entire discussion history)
Executes a web search using the configured search engine.
Scraps the HTML content of top web pages returned by the search engine
Divide the scrapped content into small chunks of text
1. [Optional] Embed the chunks locally and perform a similarity search based on the generated query.
Passes the relevant information to the context and answers the user’s question/query

Input

A user question

Example input:

“What are the recent trends and developments in Zurich’s financial and insurance markets?“

Output

An answer based on retrieved web pages, either referencing the appropriate links or stating that no information was found in the retrieved web pages.

Configuration settings (technical)

Reference in Code

WebSearch

Web Search Config

Provided below is the general structure of the configuration for the Web Search module.

Field	Type	Description	Default Value

Field	Type	Description	Default Value
model_name	`LanguageModelName`	Model name	`DEFAULT_MODEL_NAME`
search_engine_name	Literal["google", "bing"]	Search Engine ['google', 'bing']	"bing"
bing_config	`BingConfig`	Configuration for Bing search	`BingConfig()`
google_config	`GoogleConfig`	Configuration for Google search	`GoogleConfig()`
data_sources_config	`DataSourcesConfig`	Configuration for data sources	`DataSourcesConfig()`
answer_generation_config	`AnswerGenerationConfig`	Configuration for answer generation	`AnswerGenerationConfig()`
query_generation_config	`QueryGenerationConfig`	Configuration for query generation	`QueryGenerationConfig()`
debugging	bool	Enable debugging mode	False

Bing Search API

Field	Type	Description	Default Value

Field	Type	Description	Default Value
search_country_code	str	Search Country Code. Default is Switzerland	"CH"
search_market	str	Search Market. Default is German Switzerland	"de-CH"
custom_search_config	`BingCustomSearchConfig`	Configuration for Bing Custom Search	`BingCustomSearchConfig()`

Bing Custom Search Config

Bing offers the possibility to customize the search results. For example:

Limit the search to a predefined set of domains
Promote a domain
Pin results from a specific website
Filter links
…

This Web Search module developed by Unique supports custom search through the custom_config_id parameter that can be obtained from https://www.customsearch.ai/. More details on setup can be found in the following link: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/search-apis/bing-custom-search/how-to/quick-start

Once the id is created, it can be passed to through config to your assistant.

There is also the possibility to boost specific search domains without the need to create a custom search id. This can simply be achieved by passing the list of domains in the boosted_search_domains parameter. NOTE: contrary to custom search, this method doesn’t necessarily restrict the search domains to the list provided in boosted_search_domains.

Field	Type	Description	Default Value

Field	Type	Description	Default Value
id	str \| None	Custom Config ID. Can be setup from https://www.customsearch.ai/	None
boosted_search_domains	list[str]	List of domains to boost in search results	[]

Google Search API

Field	Type	Description	Default Value

Field	Type	Description	Default Value
search_country_code	str	Search Country Code. Default is Switzerland. Must be lowercase	"ch"
custom_search_config	`GoogleCustomSearchConfig`	Configuration for Google Custom Search	`GoogleCustomSearchConfig()`

Google Custom Search Config

Google Custom search is not supported yet, but can be implemented if requested by users.

Field	Type	Description	Default Value

Field	Type	Description	Default Value
dummy_config	str	Dummy Config	"dummy"

Data Source Config

This configuration defines how the module deals with the data retrieved from the internet (e.g. number of sources, chunk_size, …)

Field	Type	Description	Default Value

Field	Type	Description	Default Value
fetch_size	int	Number of search results to fetch	4
max_workers	int	Number of workers to embed search results	10
chunk_size	int	Number of chunks to split the search results	600
chunk_overlap	int	Number of chunks to overlap	50
embedding_batch_size	int	Embedding Batch Size	128

Answer Generation Config

This configuration defines how the module make use of the retrieved pages from the internet to generate its answer.

Field	Type	Description	Default Value

Field	Type	Description	Default Value
limit_token_sources	int	Token Source Limit	5000
max_chunks_to_consider	int	Maximum Chunks to Consider	20
number_history_interactions_included	int	Number of history interactions included	2
embedding_reranking	bool	Apply reranking of chunks based on embeddings	True

Query Generation Config

The module automatically optimize the question of the user to better work with search engines. The user for example may want to always search the web in English or as in the default value, use the

Field	Type	Description	Default Value

Field	Type	Description	Default Value
query_instruction	str	Instruction of the query parameter	"The user's search query, optimized for search engines, incorporates relevant details from the conversation, especially if it is a follow-up question. Always use the user's language message."

Configuraion Example

{
  "WebSearchConfig": {
    "debugging": false,
    "model_name": "AZURE_GPT_4o_2024_0513",
    "bing_config": {
      "search_market": "de-CH",
      "search_country_code": "CH",
      "custom_search_config": {
        "id": null,
        "boosted_search_domains": []
      }
    },
    "search_engine_name": "bing",
    "data_sources_config": {
      "chunk_size": 600,
      "fetch_size": 10,
      "max_workers": 10,
      "chunk_overlap": 50,
      "embedding_batch_size": 128
    },
    "query_generation_config": {
      "query_instruction": "The user's search query, optimized for search engines, incorporates relevant details from the conversation, especially if it is a follow-up question. Always use the user's language message."
    },
    "answer_generation_config": {
      "embedding_reranking": false,
      "limit_token_sources": 10000,
      "max_chunks_to_consider": 500,
      "number_history_interactions_included": 4
    }
  }
}

Definition

{
  "type": "function",
  "function": {
    "name": "WebSearch",
    "parameters": {
      "type": "object",
      "required": [
        "query"
      ],
      "properties": {
        "query": {
          "type": "string",
          "description": "User's query that needs to be used to retrieve information from the web using a search engine."
        }
      }
    },
    "description": "Useful to answer user's query based on information from the web."
  }
}

Author	@Rami Azouz

Public Documentation

Web Search Module