reference_search
Answer a research question using live web sources, returning a synthesized answer with organized citations and source links.
Instructions
AI-assisted reference search: answer a question from live web sources using Gemini's Google Search grounding, and return organized citations. Unlike the OpenAI-spec 'search'/'fetch' connector tools, this composes a synthesized answer AND returns the source links plus claim->source supports (citations) in one call. Returns: answer (synthesized text), citations (deduped {index,title,uri,domain} sources), supports (answer segments mapped to citation indices with confidence scores), searchQueries (the queries the model actually ran), and searchSuggestionsHtml (Google's required Search Suggestions markup to display alongside the answer). Search-scope tuning is backend-specific: Vertex AI supports excludeDomains (skip up to 2000 domains) and blockingConfidence (block risky/low-quality sites); Google AI Studio supports timeRange (restrict to a publish-time window) and grounding on explicit urls via URL context (Gemini API only, not Vertex AI). Both backends support includeImages.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| urls | No | Specific http(s) URLs to ground the answer on via URL context (max 20). Google AI Studio backend only; the URL context tool is not available on Vertex AI. | |
| model | No | Optional Gemini model override; must support Google Search grounding (default: server model). | |
| prompt | Yes | Research question or topic to answer from live web sources. | |
| timeRange | No | Restrict results to a publish-time window for recency tuning (both fields required). Google AI Studio backend only. | |
| includeImages | No | Also enable image-search grounding in addition to web search. | |
| thinkingLevel | No | Optional Gemini 3 thinking level override for the reasoning depth of the answer. | |
| excludeDomains | No | Domains to exclude from results, e.g. ['reddit.com','pinterest.com'] (search-scope tuning; max 2000). Vertex AI backend only. | |
| systemInstruction | No | Optional system instruction to steer the tone, depth, or scope of the composed answer. | |
| blockingConfidence | No | Block risky/low-quality sites at or above this confidence ('low' is most aggressive). Vertex AI backend only. |