Privacy-first web search via Brave's independent index, pay-per-query over MPP/Tempo.
What it does
Brave Search — Web Search is an MPP-enabled endpoint that provides web search results from Brave's large independent search index. It is part of a broader Brave Search suite hosted on the Locus MPP gateway that also includes news search, image search, video search, LLM context retrieval, and AI answers endpoints. Each call is settled via the Tempo method on pathUSD at $0.035 per query (the AI Answers endpoint costs $0.085).
The web search endpoint accepts a POST request with a JSON body containing a required query string (max 400 characters / 50 words) and optional parameters for result count (1–20), pagination offset (0–9), country code, language, freshness window, safe-search level, result type filtering (web, news, videos, discussions, FAQ, infobox), and an option to enable summary generation. The OpenAPI spec is well-defined with clear parameter descriptions, though no response schema is documented.
The endpoint is accessed via POST to `/brave/web-search`. The probe returned 404 on HEAD and GET, which is expected since the OpenAPI spec declares only a POST method. The root domain returns a helpful JSON error pointing callers to the skill file and llms.txt. Documentation references include the official Brave Search API docs at api.search.brave.com and an LLM-oriented markdown file at beta.paywithlocus.com/mpp/brave.md.
Capabilities
Use cases
- —Agent-driven web research with per-query micropayments
- —RAG pipelines that need fresh web results without API key management
- —Building privacy-respecting search features into applications
- —Automated fact-checking or news monitoring workflows
- —LLM tool-use where the agent pays for its own search calls
Fit
Best for
- —AI agents that need on-demand web search without subscription commitments
- —Privacy-conscious applications avoiding Google/Bing dependencies
- —Developers wanting pay-per-call search with no API key signup
Not for
- —High-volume bulk scraping (pagination limited to offset 0–9, max 20 results per call)
- —Applications requiring detailed response schema guarantees (response schema not documented)
Quick start
curl -X POST https://brave.mpp.paywithlocus.com/brave/web-search \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"q": "latest AI research papers", "count": 5}'Example
Request
{
"q": "latest AI research papers",
"count": 5,
"country": "US",
"summary": true,
"freshness": "pw",
"safesearch": "moderate",
"search_lang": "en"
}Endpoint
Quality
The OpenAPI spec is well-structured with clear request schemas, pricing info, and parameter descriptions. However, no response schema is documented, the probe returned 404 (expected for GET/HEAD on a POST-only endpoint but means liveness via 402 challenge was not confirmed), and crawled pages yielded no additional documentation content.
Warnings
- —Endpoint liveness not confirmed: probe used HEAD/GET but endpoint only accepts POST; a 402 challenge was not captured.
- —No response schema documented — callers cannot validate response structure in advance.
- —Currency address 0x20c000000000000000000000b9537d11c60e8b50 assumed to be pathUSD with 6 decimals; if incorrect, pricing would differ.
- —All crawled pages returned 404 JSON errors; no supplementary documentation was retrievable from the gateway itself.
Citations
- —OpenAPI spec declares POST method for /brave/web-search with detailed request parametershttps://brave.mpp.paywithlocus.com
- —Payment amount is 35000 base units via Tempo method for web searchhttps://brave.mpp.paywithlocus.com
- —AI Answers endpoint costs 85000 base units per callhttps://brave.mpp.paywithlocus.com
- —Official API documentation referenced at api.search.brave.comhttps://api.search.brave.com/app/%23/documentation
- —LLM-oriented docs available at beta.paywithlocus.com/mpp/brave.mdhttps://beta.paywithlocus.com/mpp/brave.md