Web Access

The web access seam — a capability seam that spans two operations (search and fetch) on one ctx.web service, split across packages: Service Definition (dsh-web, ctx.web + the provider registries), Service Providers (dsh-web-search-exa, dsh-web-search-perplexity, dsh-web-search-deepseek, dsh-web-fetch-http), and Consumer (dsh-tool-web, the web_search/web_fetch tool schemas). Web is one optional capability, not part of the agent-loop spine — so its vocabulary lives here, not in core.md. A search-provider swap does not change how the model asks for a query, and a fetch-provider swap does not change how the model asks for a URL.

Source: packages/web/web/src/types.ts

Why one capability has two operations

Search and fetch share no request schema and no business logic, but they are deliberately one ctx.web middle layer: one provider-selection policy owner, one abort/error vocabulary, and one product-facing "how this harness reaches the web" configuration API. The cost is the parallel searchX/fetchX method pairs on the service; that parallelism is intentional, not a missed extraction. Providers register capabilities (a WebSearchProvider or WebFetchProvider), not tools; the model-facing names, schemas, prompt guidance, and presentation all live in the single dsh-tool-web consumer.

Search request and result

The model-facing tool argument is just a query; maxResults is a consumer-owned bound (dsh-tool-web's searchMaxResults config, default 8) passed through the seam and enforced on the way back — if a provider over-returns, the seam truncates sources[] and sets truncated.

/**
 * What one search-capable backend can return. The model-facing argument is just
 * a query; `maxResults` is a `dsh-tool-web`-layer bound passed through unchanged
 * and enforced on the way back by the seam (see {@link WebSearchResult}).
 */
interface WebSearchRequest {
  readonly query: string
  /**
   * Upper bound on returned sources; the seam truncates to it. Omitted = no
   * bound. `dsh-tool-web` always sets it. A provider whose API supports a
   * result-count control (Exa's `numResults`) should apply it at the request
   * layer as a cost/latency optimization; the seam enforces the bound
   * regardless.
   */
  readonly maxResults?: number
}

/**
 * Normalized search outcome. `content` is optional provider-generated answer
 * text or summary (Exa and DeepSeek return none; Perplexity returns a
 * generated answer).
 * `sources[]` is the portable citation shape. `truncated` is set by the seam
 * when it cut `sources[]` down to `maxResults`.
 */
interface WebSearchResult {
  /** Optional provider-generated answer text, search context, or summary. */
  readonly content?: string
  /** Citeable sources, already truncated to the request's `maxResults`. */
  readonly sources: readonly WebSearchSource[]
  /** True when the seam dropped sources to honor `maxResults`. */
  readonly truncated: boolean
}

/**
 * One citeable source. A source always has a URL; `title`, `snippet`, and
 * `publishedAt` are optional because not every provider returns them — forcing
 * adapters to invent them would make the seam lie (Perplexity citations may be
 * URL-only). `dsh-tool-web` renders `title ?? hostname(url)` for display.
 */
interface WebSearchSource {
  readonly url: string
  readonly title?: string
  readonly snippet?: string
  /** Publication/crawl timestamp as a provider-supplied ISO-8601 string. */
  readonly publishedAt?: string
}

Fetch request and result

/**
 * What one fetch-capable backend is asked to retrieve. The request deliberately
 * omits timeout, format, prompt, and extraction controls: cancellation is a
 * direct execution argument, while presentation and higher-level LLM concerns
 * belong outside safe retrieval.
 */
interface WebFetchRequest {
  readonly url: string
}

HTTP status is part of the fetched resource state, not automatically a failure: a successful network fetch of a 404/500 returns a WebFetchResult with the status code and a bounded decoded body. url is the final URL after allowed redirects. WebError is reserved for failures to safely retrieve or represent the resource.

/**
 * Normalized fetch outcome. A successful network fetch of a non-2xx response is
 * a result, not an error: the status code is part of the fetched resource
 * state. {@link WebError} is reserved for failures to safely retrieve or
 * represent the resource.
 */
interface WebFetchResult {
  /** The final URL after allowed redirects (the request URL is in the request). */
  readonly url: string
  /** HTTP status code of the fetched response. */
  readonly statusCode: number
  /** Decoded body, classified by content kind. */
  readonly body: WebFetchBody
  /** True when the provider capped the decoded body. */
  readonly truncated: boolean
}

/**
 * The decoded body of a fetched resource. A CLOSED discriminated union owned by
 * `dsh-web`: the provider decodes the kind and `dsh-tool-web` renders it, so a
 * new kind is a coordinated change across known packages, not a plugin
 * extension. Consumers `switch` on `kind` ending in `default: assertNever(...)`
 * so adding a kind breaks compilation at every consumer until handled. Each arm
 * stays its own object literal even where fields coincide, so an arm can gain
 * fields the others lack.
 */
type WebFetchBody =
  | { readonly kind: 'html'; readonly content: string }
  | { readonly kind: 'text'; readonly content: string }

Provider availability

A provider's available(): boolean is a cheap LOCAL check (credential presence, parseable config) and must not make network calls. It is an input to execution-time selection, not a health system: search()/fetch() read it to pick a usable provider, and a selection failure surfaces as the structured WebError the caller routes on — which carries the branchable detail (the missing id or ambiguous candidate set) in its code and message.

Selection never depends on registration, config, or HMR order: a capability has an explicit provider id (config searchProvider/fetchProvider, or the matching env var feeding the same field), or auto-selects when exactly one usable provider is registered; multiple usable providers with no configured id is WEB_PROVIDER_AMBIGUOUS, not first-wins.

Errors

WebError extends HarnessError (core.md error taxonomy) with a code: string (open, like every other seam's error — LlmError, SubagentError), not a closed union: a provider may raise its own codes without editing dsh-web, and consumers must tolerate an unknown code. The codes split by owner. Seam-neutral codes are raised by the shared WebRuntime contract: WEB_PROVIDER_UNAVAILABLE, WEB_PROVIDER_CONFIGURED_MISSING, WEB_PROVIDER_CONFIGURED_UNAVAILABLE, WEB_PROVIDER_AMBIGUOUS, WEB_DUPLICATE_PROVIDER (a registration-time programming error, the analogue of LlmRuntime's DUPLICATE_ADAPTER), WEB_ABORTED, and WEB_PROVIDER_ERROR (the catch-all for a provider's own failure surfaced through the seam, including network/transport failure — DNS, connection refused, TLS). Fetch-transport codes are owned by the dsh-web-fetch-http implementation and a different fetch backend need not raise them: WEB_INVALID_URL, WEB_BLOCKED_URL, WEB_REDIRECT_BLOCKED, WEB_FETCH_TOO_LARGE, WEB_FETCH_TIMEOUT, WEB_UNSUPPORTED_CONTENT_TYPE.

The service

WebRuntime registers search and fetch providers, rejects duplicate ids with WEB_DUPLICATE_PROVIDER, and resolves providers at execution time with structured selection errors. The local fetch backend accepts only HTTP(S), rejects credentials, caps redirects, bytes, characters, and time, revalidates every same-origin redirect hop, and decodes the body; the tool owns presentation. The local backend does not block private-network targets; do not enable web_fetch where it can reach sensitive internal ones.

Cordis API

Generated from source by scripts/gen-cordis-catalog.ts (verified fresh by pnpm run verify-cordis-catalog in doc-sync; regenerate with pnpm run gen-cordis-catalog) — this section is byte-identical in both language sides of the page. Signature blocks use a ts cordis-catalog fence and keep the original source JSDoc; dispatch modes are defined in the primer, and the framework-inherited ctx API lives in cordis-api/inherited.md.

`ctx.web` — `WebRuntime`

The web access service. Registered as ctx.web (one instance per context).

Selection semantics (resolved at execution time, never order-dependent):

A configured id that is registered and available() → that provider.
A configured id not registered → WEB_PROVIDER_CONFIGURED_MISSING.
A configured id registered but unavailable → WEB_PROVIDER_CONFIGURED_UNAVAILABLE.
No id configured, exactly one registered usable provider → that provider.
No id configured, multiple usable providers → WEB_PROVIDER_AMBIGUOUS.
No id configured, no usable provider → WEB_PROVIDER_UNAVAILABLE.

/**
 * Register a search provider. Throws {@link WebError} `WEB_DUPLICATE_PROVIDER`
 * if its id is already registered for search. Returns a disposer; disposed
 * with the calling fiber.
 * @param provider - the provider; its `id` is the registry key.
 * @returns the disposer that unregisters the provider.
 */
registerSearchProvider(provider: WebSearchProvider): () => void

/**
 * Register a fetch provider. Throws {@link WebError} `WEB_DUPLICATE_PROVIDER`
 * if its id is already registered for fetch. Returns a disposer; disposed
 * with the calling fiber.
 * @param provider - the provider; its `id` is the registry key.
 * @returns the disposer that unregisters the provider.
 */
registerFetchProvider(provider: WebFetchProvider): () => void

/**
 * Run one search through the selected provider. Resolves the provider at call
 * time with the selection rules above; throws {@link WebError} when the
 * capability cannot run. The seam enforces `request.maxResults` on the result:
 * if the provider over-returns, `sources[]` is truncated and `truncated` set.
 * @param request - the query and optional result limit.
 * @param signal - optional cancellation signal forwarded to the provider.
 * @returns the provider's results, capped to `request.maxResults`.
 */
async search(request: WebSearchRequest, signal?: AbortSignal): Promise<WebSearchResult>

/**
 * Retrieve one URL through the selected provider. Resolves the provider at
 * call time with the selection rules above; throws {@link WebError} when the
 * capability cannot run. A non-2xx response is a result, not a throw.
 * @param request - the URL plus retrieval options.
 * @param signal - optional cancellation signal forwarded to the provider.
 * @returns the retrieval outcome; non-2xx responses resolve descriptively.
 */
async fetch(request: WebFetchRequest, signal?: AbortSignal): Promise<WebFetchResult>

Source: packages/web/web/src/index.ts:74

Web Access ​

Why one capability has two operations ​

Search request and result ​

Fetch request and result ​

Provider availability ​

Errors ​

The service ​

Cordis API ​

ctx.web — WebRuntime ​