Ollama web search

OpenClaw supports Ollama Web Search as a bundled web_search provider. It uses Ollama's web-search API and returns structured results with titles, URLs, and snippets.

For local or self-hosted Ollama, this setup does not need an API key by default. It does require:

• an Ollama host that is reachable from OpenClaw
• ollama signin

For direct hosted search, set the Ollama provider base URL to https://ollama.com and provide a real OLLAMA_API_KEY.

Setup

```bash
ollama signin
```

```bash
openclaw configure --section web
```

Then select **Ollama Web Search** as the provider.

If you already use Ollama for models, Ollama Web Search reuses the same configured host.

Config

{
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        provider: "ollama",
      },
    },
  },
}

Optional Ollama host override:

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      ollama: {
        config: {
          webSearch: {
            baseUrl: "http://ollama-host:11434",
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

If you already configure Ollama as a model provider, the web-search provider can reuse that host instead:

{
  models: {
    providers: {
      ollama: {
        baseUrl: "http://ollama-host:11434",
      },
    },
  },
}

The Ollama model provider uses baseUrl as the canonical key. The web-search provider also honors baseURL on models.providers.ollama for compatibility with OpenAI SDK-style config examples.

If no explicit Ollama base URL is set, OpenClaw uses http://127.0.0.1:11434.

If your Ollama host expects bearer auth, OpenClaw reuses models.providers.ollama.apiKey (or the matching env-backed provider auth) for requests to that configured host.

Direct hosted Ollama Web Search:

{
  models: {
    providers: {
      ollama: {
        baseUrl: "https://ollama.com",
        apiKey: "OLLAMA_API_KEY",
      },
    },
  },
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        provider: "ollama",
      },
    },
  },
}

Notes

• No web-search-specific API key field is required for this provider.
• If the Ollama host is auth-protected, OpenClaw reuses the normal Ollama provider API key when present.
• If baseUrl is https://ollama.com, OpenClaw calls https://ollama.com/api/web_search directly and sends the configured Ollama API key as bearer auth.
• If the configured host does not expose web search and OLLAMA_API_KEY is set, OpenClaw can fall back to https://ollama.com/api/web_search without sending that env key to the local host.
• OpenClaw warns during setup if Ollama is unreachable or not signed in, but it does not block selection.
• Runtime auto-detect can fall back to Ollama Web Search when no higher-priority credentialed provider is configured.
• Local Ollama daemon hosts use the local proxy endpoint /api/experimental/web_search, which signs and forwards to Ollama Cloud.
• https://ollama.com hosts use the public hosted endpoint /api/web_search directly with bearer API-key auth.

Related

• Web Search overview -- all providers and auto-detection
• Ollama -- Ollama model setup and cloud/local modes