> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.fetchhive.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Perplexity Search

> Search the web with Perplexity's standalone Search API from any workflow

Use **Perplexity Search** when a workflow needs normalized web results from Perplexity's standalone Search API.

This is different from **Sonar Web Search**. Perplexity Search is a workflow step and cross-provider agent tool backed by `POST /search`. Sonar Web Search is native search available only to agents using Perplexity Sonar models.

## Configuration

| Option                   | Required | Description                                                                                                                    |
| ------------------------ | -------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Name                     | No       | Label shown on the workflow canvas.                                                                                            |
| Search Query             | Yes      | Non-empty query. Use **Insert Variable** to include prior step output.                                                         |
| Number of results        | No       | Maximum results from 1 to 20. The default is 10.                                                                               |
| Country                  | No       | ISO country restriction. The default is United States; choose **No country restriction** to omit it.                           |
| Search context size      | No       | `Low`, `Medium`, or `High` extracted-content preset. The default is `High`. Select **Custom token limits** to omit the preset. |
| Maximum total tokens     | No       | Total extracted webpage-content limit from 1 to 1,000,000.                                                                     |
| Maximum tokens per page  | No       | Per-result-page content limit from 1 to 1,000,000. Setting either token limit omits search context size.                       |
| Search languages         | No       | Up to 20 ISO 639-1 language codes selected from the searchable multi-select.                                                   |
| Updated after / before   | No       | Optional last-updated date range. The after date must be earlier than the before date.                                         |
| Published after / before | No       | Optional publication date range. The after date must be earlier than the before date. Dates are sent as `MM/DD/YYYY`.          |
| Publication recency      | No       | Past `hour`, `day`, `week`, `month`, or `year`.                                                                                |
| Credentials              | No       | **Hosted** uses Fetch Hive's Perplexity connection. **Personal** requires an enabled Perplexity integration in the workspace.  |
| When the step fails      | No       | Terminate the workflow or continue after an error.                                                                             |

The step supports parallelization. Each version keeps its own query, credential mode, and complete search-option set and performs a separate search call.

## Output

The output is an array of normalized results. Each result can contain:

```json theme={null}
{
  "title": "Example result",
  "url": "https://example.com/result",
  "snippet": "A short result excerpt",
  "date": "2026-07-24",
  "last_updated": "2026-07-24"
}
```

Optional fields are omitted when Perplexity does not return them. An empty array is a successful, billable search and can be passed directly to an iterator:

```text theme={null}
{{perplexity_search.output}}
```

## Billing and limits

Hosted calls use Perplexity's fixed Search API request cost. Personal calls use one platform task and your workspace integration. Each actual request consumes one provider-tool limit unit; validation failures do not.

See also: [Workflow step overview](../overview), [Error Handling](../../error-handling), and [Perplexity Search for agents](../../../agents/mcp-tools/perplexity-search-api)