Fast Mode Search

Instant search metadata for lightning-fast filtering and intelligent content selection in LLM-powered workflows.

Fast Mode is an optimized search option that returns search result metadata (titles, snippets, URLs, positions) without fetching and parsing the full page content. This mode is designed for speed and efficiency when you need quick access to search results for analysis, filtering, or selective content extraction.

Usage

To enable Fast Mode, set deep_search to false in your search request:

Sample Request

curl -X POST https://nimble-retriever.webit.live/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "latest AI trends 2025",
    "num_results": 10,
    "deep_search": false,
    "country": "US",
    "locale": "en"
  }'

Sample Response

{
  "message": "Request processed successfully",
  "body": [
    {
      "page_content": "",
      "metadata": {
        "title": "Latest GenAI Trends: 5 Key Developments to Watch",
        "snippet": "Explore the top trends in generative AI including agentic AI, retrieval-augmented generation, self-training models, and ethical AI implementations.",
        "url": "https://example.com/genai-trends-2025",
        "position": 1,
        "entity_type": "OrganicResult",
        "country": "US",
        "locale": "en"
      }
    },
    {
      "page_content": "",
      "metadata": {
        "title": "GenAI Investment and Market Analysis 2025",
        "snippet": "Despite challenges, investment in generative AI continues to grow. Analysis of market trends, adoption rates, and future projections for enterprise AI.",
        "url": "https://example.com/genai-investment-analysis",
        "position": 2,
        "entity_type": "OrganicResult",
        "country": "US",
        "locale": "en"
      }
    },
    {
      "page_content": "",
      "metadata": {
        "title": "Emerging Technologies: AI and Data Trends",
        "snippet": "Comprehensive overview of agent-ready data, AI for data engineering, data provenance, compliance changes, and the rise of agentic edge computing.",
        "url": "https://example.com/emerging-tech-trends",
        "position": 3,
        "entity_type": "OrganicResult",
        "country": "US",
        "locale": "en"
      }
    }
  ]
}

---

AI-Powered Answers

Fast Mode supports optional AI-generated answer summaries that provide quick insights from search results without reading full content.

This costs 1 additional credit per request.

Sample Request:

curl -X POST https://nimble-retriever.webit.live/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "latest developments in quantum computing",
    "num_results": 5,
    "deep_search": false,
    "include_answer": true
  }'

Sample Response:

{
  "message": "Request processed successfully",
  "answer": "Recent developments in quantum computing include significant advances in error correction, with researchers achieving quantum advantage in specific computational tasks. Major tech companies have announced new quantum processors with increased qubit counts and improved coherence times, moving closer to practical quantum applications in cryptography and drug discovery.",
  "body": [...]
}

---

Combining with Extract Endpoint

Fast Mode pairs perfectly with the /extract endpoint for efficient two-step workflows:

1. Discovery Phase: Use Fast Mode to find all relevant URLs

2. Filter Phase: Apply your own logic to select which URLs to process

3. Extraction Phase: Use /extract to get full content from selected URLs

This approach gives you full control over which content to fetch while maintaining high performance.

LLM & AI Application Benefits

Fast Mode is particularly valuable for LLM and AI-powered applications:

Efficient Token Usage Metadata (title + snippet) uses significantly fewer tokens than full page content - often 10-20x less. This keeps your context window available for reasoning and task execution rather than raw content, while dramatically reducing API costs for token-based LLM services.

AI-Powered Summaries Enable include_answer to get instant 2-3 sentence summaries generated from search results. Perfect for quick insights, topic exploration, and determining relevance before committing to full content extraction.

Intelligent Source Selection Provide your LLM with enough context (titles and snippets) to make informed decisions about source relevance without reading full content. Enable agentic workflows that analyze metadata first, then selectively extract only the most promising sources.

Scalable Search Operations Perform multiple search iterations to explore different angles, refine queries, and analyze results across topics without exhausting your context window or budget. Perfect for research agents and multi-step workflows.