Vercel AI SDK Plugin for You.com

Give your AI applications real-time access to the web with native AI SDK tools. Search current content, get AI-generated answers with web context, and extract live web pages—all through simple function calls. Built for the Vercel AI SDK, this plugin brings You.com's search, AI agents, and content extraction directly into your AI applications with zero server setup.

Features

Build AI applications that can:

• Search the web in real-time - Access current information with advanced filtering (dates, sites, file types)
• Generate answers with web context - Fast AI responses enhanced with live web data
• Extract any webpage - Pull full content in markdown or HTML format
• Zero configuration - Works with any AI SDK model provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and more)
• Type-safe - Full TypeScript support with Zod schema validation
• Production-ready - Built on You.com's enterprise search API

Getting started

Get up and running in 4 quick steps:

1. Get your API key

Visit you.com/platform/api-keys to get your You.com API key. Keep this key secure - you'll need it for configuration.

2. Install the package (NPM, Bun, or Yarn)

Choose your package manager:

# NPM
npm install @youdotcom-oss/ai-sdk-plugin ai

# Bun
bun add @youdotcom-oss/ai-sdk-plugin ai

# Yarn
yarn add @youdotcom-oss/ai-sdk-plugin ai

3. Add tools to your application

Import the tools and add them to your AI SDK configuration:

import { createAnthropic } from '@ai-sdk/anthropic';
import { generateText } from 'ai';
import { youSearch, youExpress, youContents } from '@youdotcom-oss/ai-sdk-plugin';

// Create your AI model provider
const anthropic = createAnthropic({
  apiKey: process.env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY,
});

const result = await generateText({
  model: anthropic('claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929'),
  tools: {
    search: youSearch(),
    agent: youExpress(),
    extract: youContents(),
  },
  maxSteps: 5,
  prompt: 'Search for the latest developments in quantum computing',
});

console.log(result.text);

Set your API keys as environment variables:

export YDC_API_KEY=your-api-key-here
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your-anthropic-api-key-here

4. Test your setup

Ask your AI something that needs real-time information:

• "What are the latest developments in quantum computing?"
• "Find recent articles about sustainable energy and summarize the key trends"
• "Extract and analyze the content from https://anthropic.com"

Your AI will automatically choose the right tool and return up-to-date, accurate answers.

What you can build

Your AI can now handle requests like these:

Research & information

Current events:

• "What's trending in AI research this week?"
• "Find the latest news about climate policy from the past month"

Comparative research:

• "Compare the features of the top 3 CRM platforms"
• "What are developers saying about the new React version?"

Technical documentation:

• "Search for TypeScript best practices on the official docs"
• "Find examples of using WebAssembly in production"

Content analysis & extraction

Documentation analysis:

• "Extract and summarize the main points from https://docs.example.com"
• "Get the pricing information from https://competitor.com/pricing"

Multi-page research:

• "Extract content from these 3 blog posts and compare their approaches"
• "Pull the documentation from these URLs and create a summary"

Real-time workflows

Market intelligence:

• "What's the current status of the stock market?"
• "Find recent funding announcements in the AI space"

Competitive analysis:

• "Search for recent product launches by our competitors"
• "Extract feature comparisons from competitor websites"

Configuration

The plugin works out of the box with environment variables:

export YDC_API_KEY=your-api-key-here

Passing API key directly

You can configure tools individually instead of using environment variables:

import { youSearch } from '@youdotcom-oss/ai-sdk-plugin';

const search = youSearch({
  apiKey: 'your-api-key-here', // Override YDC_API_KEY environment variable
});

Configuration type

export type YouToolsConfig = {
  apiKey?: string;  // You.com API key (defaults to YDC_API_KEY env var)
};

Using different model providers

This plugin works with any AI SDK compatible model provider:

// Anthropic Claude
import { createAnthropic } from '@ai-sdk/anthropic';

const anthropic = createAnthropic({
  apiKey: process.env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY,
});

const result = await generateText({
  model: anthropic('claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929'),
  tools: { search: youSearch() },
  prompt: 'Search for AI news',
});

// OpenAI
import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY,
});

const result = await generateText({
  model: openai('gpt-4'),
  tools: { search: youSearch() },
  prompt: 'Search for AI news',
});

// Google Gemini
import { createGoogleGenerativeAI } from '@ai-sdk/google';

const google = createGoogleGenerativeAI({
  apiKey: process.env.GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_API_KEY,
});

const result = await generateText({
  model: google('gemini-2.0-flash-exp'),
  tools: { search: youSearch() },
  prompt: 'Search for AI news',
});

Available tools

This plugin provides three tools that your AI can use automatically:

youSearch()

Comprehensive web and news search with advanced filtering capabilities. Perfect for finding current information, research articles, documentation, and news stories.

When your AI will use this:

• Searching for current information or news
• Finding specific content with filters (dates, sites, file types)
• Research queries requiring multiple results

youExpress()

Fast AI-powered agent that provides synthesized answers with optional real-time web search. Ideal for straightforward questions that benefit from AI interpretation.

When your AI will use this:

• Direct questions needing quick answers
• Queries benefiting from AI synthesis
• Requests for explanations or summaries with web context

youContents()

Extract full page content from URLs in markdown or HTML format. Useful for documentation analysis, content processing, and batch URL extraction.

When your AI will use this:

• Extracting content from specific URLs
• Processing multiple pages in batch
• Analyzing webpage content for further processing

Note: Your AI automatically selects the right tool based on the user's request. Simply set maxSteps to allow multiple tool calls, and your AI handles the orchestration.

Examples

The examples/ directory contains complete working examples demonstrating all features:

• basic-search.ts - Web search with filters and parameters
• streaming-text.ts - Real-time streaming responses
• agent-response.ts - AI reasoning with web context
• content-extraction.ts - Extract and analyze webpages
• error-handling.ts - Production-ready error handling

Quick start:

1. Set up your environment variables (see examples/README.md for 3 setup options)
2. Run an example:

# Using the example script (easiest)
bun run example              # Runs basic-search (default)
bun run example agent        # Runs agent-response
bun run example help         # Shows all available examples

# Or run directly
cd packages/ai-sdk-plugin
bun examples/basic-search.ts

All examples include:

• Environment variable validation with helpful error messages
• Explicit provider pattern matching integration tests
• Error handling best practices

For complete setup instructions, environment variable options, and troubleshooting, see examples/README.md

Troubleshooting

Problem: "YDC_API_KEY is required" error

Solution: Set your API key as an environment variable:

export YDC_API_KEY=your-api-key-here
# Then restart your application

Or pass it directly when creating tools:

const search = youSearch({ apiKey: 'your-api-key-here' });

Problem: AI isn't using the tools

Solution: Make sure you're setting maxSteps to allow multiple tool calls:

import { createAnthropic } from '@ai-sdk/anthropic';

const anthropic = createAnthropic({
  apiKey: process.env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY,
});

const result = await generateText({
  model: anthropic('claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929'),
  tools: { search: youSearch() },
  maxSteps: 5,  // Required: allows AI to use tools
  prompt: 'Search for recent AI news',
});

Problem: Getting 401 authentication errors

Solution: Verify your API key is correct and properly set:

# Check if environment variable is set
echo $YDC_API_KEY

# If empty, set it
export YDC_API_KEY=your-api-key-here

Get a new API key at you.com/platform/api-keys if needed.

Problem: Getting rate limit errors (429)

Solution: You've hit the API rate limit. Wait a few minutes before retrying, or check your API usage at you.com/platform/api-keys.

Problem: Tool execution failing silently

Solution: Check the AI SDK's tool results for error details:

import { createAnthropic } from '@ai-sdk/anthropic';

const anthropic = createAnthropic({
  apiKey: process.env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY,
});

const result = await generateText({
  model: anthropic('claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929'),
  tools: { search: youSearch() },
  prompt: 'Search for AI news',
});

// Inspect tool results for errors
console.log(result.toolResults);

Need more help?

• GitHub Issues: Report bugs
• Email Support: [email protected]

For contributors

Interested in contributing? We'd love your help!

Development setup: See AGENTS.md for complete development guide, architecture overview, code patterns, and testing guidelines.

Quick contribution steps:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch following CONTRIBUTING.md conventions
3. Follow code style guidelines (Biome enforced)
4. Write tests for your changes
5. Run quality checks: bun run check && bun test
6. Submit a pull request with a clear description

We appreciate contributions of all kinds:

• Bug fixes and improvements
• New features and enhancements
• Documentation improvements
• Test coverage improvements
• Performance optimizations

License: MIT - see LICENSE for details

Author: You.com (https://you.com)