Keenable Search Skill

Web search and page fetch via Keenable AI — purpose-built for AI agents. Two scripts cover all use cases: search the web, fetch/extract page contents.

Prerequisite: KEENABLE_API_KEY environment variable. Get key at https://app.keenable.ai

When to Use Keenable

• Default web search — 100K free requests/month, generous rate limits
• Point-in-time search — query the index as it existed at a past date (--query-time)
• Prompt-driven extraction — fetch a URL and have the API extract exactly what you need (--prompt)
• High-volume research — 100x the free tier of Exa (100K vs 1K/month)

Token-Efficient Research

Search cheaply, pick the best results, extract selectively — reduces context by filtering before reasoning.

# Step 1: Search with short snippets to scan titles/descriptions
python3 ~/.claude/skills/keenable/scripts/keenable_search.py "query" --count 10 --snippet-length 200

# Step 2: Pick the 2-3 most relevant URLs from results

# Step 3: Extract only what you need from those URLs
python3 ~/.claude/skills/keenable/scripts/keenable_fetch.py URL --prompt "Extract the key findings"

Available Scripts

1. keenable_search.py — Web Search

python3 ~/.claude/skills/keenable/scripts/keenable_search.py "query" [options]

Quick Example	Purpose
... keenable_search.py "AI agents 2026"	Basic search
... keenable_search.py "Claude Code" --site docs.anthropic.com	Site-restricted
... keenable_search.py "transformer paper" --count 20	More results
... keenable_search.py "election results" --published-after 7d	Recent only
... keenable_search.py "AI safety" --query-time 2026-01-01	Historical index
... keenable_search.py "LLM benchmarks" --snippet-length 5000	Longer snippets

Key options:

• --site DOMAIN — restrict to a specific domain
• --count N — number of results (1-50, default 10)
• --snippet-length N — snippet max chars (180-10000)
• --published-after DATE — filter by publish date (absolute or relative: 7d, 30min, 2h)
• --published-before DATE — upper bound on publish date
• --query-time DATETIME — search the index as it stood at this point in time
• --json — raw JSON output (default: formatted table)

2. keenable_fetch.py — Page Fetch & Extraction

python3 ~/.claude/skills/keenable/scripts/keenable_fetch.py URL [options]

Quick Example	Purpose
... keenable_fetch.py "https://example.com"	Fetch as markdown
... keenable_fetch.py URL --live	Force live fetch (not cached)
... keenable_fetch.py URL --prompt "List all pricing tiers"	Extract specific info
... keenable_fetch.py URL --max-chars 5000	Bounded output
... keenable_fetch.py URL --live --prompt "What is the main argument?"	Live + extract

Key options:

• --live — fetch live page instead of indexed/cached copy
• --prompt TEXT — LLM-driven extraction (API reads page, returns only what you asked for)
• --max-chars N — truncate output to N characters
• --json — raw JSON response

3. keenable_setup.py — Setup & Validation

python3 ~/.claude/skills/keenable/scripts/keenable_setup.py --validate        # Test API key
python3 ~/.claude/skills/keenable/scripts/keenable_setup.py --setup-mcp       # Add MCP server

Script Selection Guide

Task	Best Approach
General web search	keenable_search.py "query"
Search specific site	keenable_search.py "query" --site domain.com
Recent news/articles	keenable_search.py "topic" --published-after 7d
Historical search	keenable_search.py "query" --query-time 2025-06-01
Read a known URL	keenable_fetch.py URL
Extract specific data from URL	keenable_fetch.py URL --prompt "extract X"
Fresh content (bypass cache)	keenable_fetch.py URL --live
Bounded page read	keenable_fetch.py URL --max-chars 3000

Keenable vs Exa vs Firecrawl

Need	Best Tool	Why
General web search	Keenable	100K free/mo, fast, reliable
Point-in-time search	Keenable	Only tool that supports historical index queries
Extract specific data from URL	Keenable --prompt	API-side LLM extraction, no post-processing
Semantic/neural search	Exa	AI-powered relevance ranking
Find similar pages	Exa exa_similar.py	Semantic similarity
Deep site crawling	Firecrawl	Link following, JS rendering
Search + scrape combined	Firecrawl search --scrape	One operation
High-volume usage	Keenable	100K vs Exa 1K vs Firecrawl 500

Common Workflows

Search then Read

# Find relevant pages
python3 ~/.claude/skills/keenable/scripts/keenable_search.py "React Server Components" --count 5

# Read the most relevant result
python3 ~/.claude/skills/keenable/scripts/keenable_fetch.py "https://react.dev/blog/..." --max-chars 8000

Extract Structured Data

python3 ~/.claude/skills/keenable/scripts/keenable_fetch.py "https://example.com/pricing" \
  --prompt "List all pricing tiers with name, price, and features as a markdown table"

Research with Date Bounds

python3 ~/.claude/skills/keenable/scripts/keenable_search.py "AI regulation" \
  --published-after 2026-01-01 --published-before 2026-06-01 --count 20

MCP Alternative

For native tool access without scripts, add Keenable as an MCP server:

claude mcp add keenable \
  --transport http https://api.keenable.ai/mcp \
  --scope user \
  --header "X-API-Key: $KEENABLE_API_KEY"

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
KEENABLE_API_KEY not set	Export in ~/.config/env/secrets.env or shell profile
401 Unauthorized	Check key starts with keen_ and is valid
429 Rate Limited	Authenticated: per-org limits. Unauthenticated: 1K/hr shared
Stale results	Use --live flag on fetch, or remove --query-time from search
Truncated content	Increase --max-chars or --snippet-length
Error fetching URL (404/422)	URL may not be indexed — add --live to fetch any URL

Reference

File	Contents
references/api-reference.md	Full API parameter reference for both endpoints
references/selection-guide.md	Detailed comparison with Exa and Firecrawl