webresearcher

A CLI tool that uses GPT-5.2 with web search for up-to-date research queries.

Why?

Claude code's built-in web search is great for quick fact-lookups, but bad at detailed research.

Evaluated against Claude's built-in WebSearch tool across 14 query types. webresearcher won 13/14 on quality while remaining cost-effective (~$0.03/query).

Installation

Set your OpenAI API key in your path:

export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-key-here"

Requires Bun runtime.

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/sky-xo/webresearcher.git
cd webresearcher

# Install dependencies
bun install

# Link globally
bun link

Usage

# Basic query (uses --effort low by default)
webresearcher "how do I stream responses with Vercel AI SDK?"

# Complex troubleshooting (use medium effort)
webresearcher --effort medium "why might Next.js build fail with module not found for an installed package?"

# See token usage and cost
webresearcher --verbose "current Bitcoin price"

Effort Levels

| Effort | Avg Latency | Avg Cost | Best For | |--------|-------------|----------|----------| | low (default) | ~17s | ~$0.03 | Most queries | | medium | ~29s | ~$0.04 | Complex troubleshooting | | high | ~60s+ | ~$0.08+ | Critical decisions |

Claude Code Integration

This tool was built to be used as a Claude Code skill. Install the skill:

webresearcher --install-skill

This copies the skill definition to ~/.claude/skills/webresearcher/SKILL.md. Claude will then know when to use webresearcher vs the built-in WebSearch tool.

Quick trigger: Tell Claude to "use wr" and it will use this tool.

When to Use What

| Query Type | Recommended Tool | |------------|------------------| | Simple factual ("latest version of X") | WebSearch | | Comparisons | webresearcher | | How-it-works explanations | webresearcher | | Best practices | webresearcher | | Troubleshooting | webresearcher --effort medium | | Documentation/code examples | webresearcher |

Flags

| Flag | Description | |------|-------------| | --effort low\|medium\|high | Reasoning effort (default: low) | | --verbose | Show token usage and cost | | --install-skill | Install Claude Code skill |

License

MIT