Tavily CLI

Search, extract, crawl, map, and research the web from your terminal.

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tavily-cli

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The Tavily CLI (tvly) brings the full Tavily API to your command line. Run web searches, extract content from URLs, crawl websites, discover sitemaps, and launch deep research — all from a single tool.

Every command supports --json for machine-readable output, making it easy to integrate into scripts, pipelines, and AI agent workflows.

Installation

Install with the official installer:

curl -fsSL https://cli.tavily.com/install.sh | bash

Or install manually:

uv tool install tavily-cli   # or: pip install tavily-cli

Verify the install:

tvly --version

Authentication

You need a Tavily API key to use the CLI. Get one for free at tavily.com.

Option 1: Login with an API key (recommended)

tvly login --api-key tvly-YOUR_API_KEY

This stores your key in ~/.tavily/config.json (readable only by your user).

Option 2: Browser-based OAuth

tvly login

This opens your browser for authentication. Tokens are stored in ~/.mcp-auth/.

OAuth login requires Node.js/npx to be available on your system.

Option 3: Environment variable

export TAVILY_API_KEY=tvly-YOUR_API_KEY

Check Your Auth Status

tvly auth

Log Out

tvly logout

This removes stored credentials from disk.

Commands

tvly search

Search the web using Tavily’s AI-optimized search engine.

tvly search "your search query"

Reading from stdin:

echo "your query" | tvly search -

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
--depth	ultra-fast | fast | basic | advanced	basic	Search depth. Higher depth returns more detailed results.
--max-results	0–20	5	Number of results to return.
--topic	general | news | finance	general	Optimize search for a specific topic.
--time-range	day | week | month | year	—	Filter results to a relative time window.
--start-date	YYYY-MM-DD	—	Only include results published after this date.
--end-date	YYYY-MM-DD	—	Only include results published before this date.
--include-domains	comma-separated	—	Restrict results to these domains.
--exclude-domains	comma-separated	—	Exclude results from these domains.
--country	country code	—	Boost results from a specific country.
--include-answer	basic | advanced	—	Include an AI-generated answer with results.
--include-raw-content	markdown | text	—	Include full page content for each result.
--include-images	flag	false	Include image results.
--include-image-descriptions	flag	false	Include AI-generated image descriptions.
--chunks-per-source	integer	—	Number of content chunks per source (requires fast or advanced depth).
-o / --output	file path	—	Save output to a file.
--json	flag	false	Output raw JSON.

Examples

# Basic search
tvly search "best programming languages 2025"

# News from the past week
tvly search "AI regulation" --topic news --time-range week

# Advanced search with AI answer
tvly search "how does transformer architecture work" --depth advanced --include-answer advanced

# Restrict to specific sites
tvly search "python tutorials" --include-domains realpython.com,docs.python.org

# Save results to a file
tvly search "climate change data" -o results.txt

tvly extract

Extract clean, readable content from one or more URLs.

tvly extract <url> [<url> ...]

You can pass up to 20 URLs at once.

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
--query	string	—	Rerank extracted chunks by relevance to this query.
--chunks-per-source	1–5	—	Number of content chunks per URL (requires --query).
--extract-depth	basic | advanced	basic	Extraction depth. advanced handles JavaScript-rendered pages.
--format	markdown | text	markdown	Output format for extracted content.
--include-images	flag	false	Include image URLs found on the page.
--timeout	1–60	—	Maximum wait time in seconds.
-o / --output	file path	—	Save output to a file.
--json	flag	false	Output raw JSON.

Examples

# Extract content from a URL
tvly extract https://example.com/article

# Extract multiple URLs
tvly extract https://example.com/page1 https://example.com/page2

# Extract with relevance filtering
tvly extract https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/ --query "list comprehensions" --chunks-per-source 3

# Extract JavaScript-rendered content
tvly extract https://example.com/spa-page --extract-depth advanced

tvly crawl

Crawl a website starting from a URL and extract content from every discovered page.

tvly crawl <url>

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
--max-depth	1–5	1	How many levels deep to crawl from the start URL.
--max-breadth	integer	20	Maximum links to follow per page.
--limit	integer	50	Total page cap for the crawl.
--instructions	string	—	Natural language guidance for the crawler (e.g., “only follow documentation pages”).
--chunks-per-source	1–5	—	Chunks per page (requires --instructions).
--extract-depth	basic | advanced	basic	Extraction depth for crawled pages.
--format	markdown | text	markdown	Output format for extracted content.
--select-paths	comma-separated regex	—	Only crawl paths matching these patterns.
--exclude-paths	comma-separated regex	—	Skip paths matching these patterns.
--select-domains	comma-separated regex	—	Only follow links to matching domains.
--exclude-domains	comma-separated regex	—	Skip links to matching domains.
--allow-external / --no-external	flag	—	Whether to follow links to external domains.
--include-images	flag	false	Include images found on pages.
--timeout	10–150	—	Maximum wait time in seconds.
-o / --output	file path	—	Save full JSON output to a file.
--output-dir	directory path	—	Save each crawled page as a separate .md file.
--json	flag	false	Output raw JSON.

Examples

# Crawl a docs site (1 level deep)
tvly crawl https://docs.example.com

# Deep crawl with a page limit
tvly crawl https://docs.example.com --max-depth 3 --limit 100

# Crawl only blog posts
tvly crawl https://example.com --select-paths "/blog/.*"

# Save each page as a markdown file
tvly crawl https://docs.example.com --output-dir ./docs-mirror

# Guided crawl
tvly crawl https://docs.example.com --instructions "focus on API reference pages"

tvly map

Discover all URLs on a website without extracting content. Useful for building sitemaps or understanding site structure.

tvly map <url>

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
--max-depth	1–5	1	How many levels deep to discover links.
--max-breadth	integer	20	Maximum links to follow per page.
--limit	integer	50	Maximum total URLs to discover.
--instructions	string	—	Natural language guidance for URL discovery.
--select-paths	comma-separated regex	—	Only include URLs matching these path patterns.
--exclude-paths	comma-separated regex	—	Exclude URLs matching these path patterns.
--select-domains	comma-separated regex	—	Only include URLs from matching domains.
--exclude-domains	comma-separated regex	—	Exclude URLs from matching domains.
--allow-external / --no-external	flag	—	Whether to include external domain links.
--timeout	10–150	—	Maximum wait time in seconds.
-o / --output	file path	—	Save output to a file.
--json	flag	false	Output raw JSON.

Examples

# Discover URLs on a site
tvly map https://example.com

# Deep URL discovery
tvly map https://docs.example.com --max-depth 3 --limit 200

# Only find API doc URLs
tvly map https://docs.example.com --select-paths "/api/.*"

# Save URL list to a file
tvly map https://example.com -o urls.txt

tvly research

Launch deep, multi-step research on any topic. Tavily’s research engine searches the web, synthesizes sources, and produces a comprehensive report with citations.

tvly research "your research topic"

This is equivalent to tvly research run "your research topic".

Reading from stdin:

echo "your topic" | tvly research -

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
--model	mini | pro | auto	auto	Research model. mini is faster, pro is more thorough, auto picks the best fit.
--no-wait	flag	false	Return the request_id immediately without waiting for completion.
--stream	flag	false	Stream results in real-time as the research progresses.
--output-schema	file path	—	Path to a JSON schema file for structured output.
--citation-format	numbered | mla | apa | chicago	—	Citation style for the research report.
--poll-interval	seconds	10	How often to check for completion.
--timeout	seconds	600	Maximum time to wait for results.
-o / --output	file path	—	Save the report to a file.
--json	flag	false	Output raw JSON.

Subcommands

Check status of a running research task:

tvly research status <request_id>

Poll a research task until it completes:

tvly research poll <request_id>

The poll subcommand accepts --poll-interval, --timeout, -o, and --json.

Examples

# Quick research
tvly research "comparison of React vs Vue in 2025"

# Thorough research with the pro model
tvly research "impact of AI on healthcare" --model pro

# Stream results as they come in
tvly research "quantum computing breakthroughs" --stream

# Fire-and-forget: get the ID, poll later
tvly research "market analysis of EVs" --no-wait
# ... later:
tvly research poll <request_id>

# Save the report to a file with APA citations
tvly research "effects of remote work on productivity" --citation-format apa -o report.md

Interactive Mode

Run tvly with no arguments to enter an interactive REPL where you can run commands without the tvly prefix:

tvly

❯ search "latest AI news"
❯ extract https://example.com
❯ exit

Global Options

These options work with the top-level tvly command:

Option	Description
--version	Print the CLI version and exit.
--status	Print the version and authentication status.
--json	Output as JSON (applies to --version and --status).
--help	Show help for any command.

tvly --version
tvly --status
tvly search --help

JSON Mode

Add --json to any command to get machine-readable JSON output. This is useful for piping into other tools like jq, or for integration with scripts and AI agents.

# Pipe search results through jq
tvly search "AI news" --json | jq '.results[].title'

# Use in a shell script
RESULTS=$(tvly search "latest papers on RAG" --json)

All human-readable output (spinners, status messages) is written to stderr, so stdout contains only the clean JSON when --json is used.

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
TAVILY_API_KEY	Your Tavily API key. Takes precedence over stored credentials.

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success.
2	Invalid input or usage error (e.g., missing required argument).
3	Authentication error (no API key found, or login failed).
4	API error (rate limit, invalid request, server error).

Uninstall

pip uninstall tavily-cli

To also remove stored credentials:

rm -rf ~/.tavily ~/.mcp-auth