Bailian Search

Real-time web search powered by Alibaba Cloud Bailian (DashScope) MCP service.

Overview

This skill integrates with Alibaba Cloud Bailian's Web Search MCP (Model Context Protocol) service, enabling AI assistants to retrieve real-time information from the internet, improving response accuracy and timeliness.

Features

• 🔍 Real-time web search
• 🌐 Global information coverage
• ⚡ Fast response via SSE (Server-Sent Events)
• 🔒 Secure API key management
• 🛠️ Easy integration with OpenClaw

Prerequisites

1. Alibaba Cloud Account: Register at Alibaba Cloud Bailian
2. API Key: Obtain a DashScope API Key from the console

Installation

Using ClawHub (Recommended)

openclaw skill install bailian-search
# or
clawhub install bailian-search

Manual Installation

# Clone to OpenClaw workspace
git clone <repository-url> ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/bailian-search

# Or download and extract to:
# ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/bailian-search/

Configuration

Set Environment Variable

Option 1: Temporary (current session)

export DASHSCOPE_API_KEY="your-dashscope-api-key"

Option 2: Permanent (recommended)

Add to your shell profile (~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc):

echo 'export DASHSCOPE_API_KEY="your-dashscope-api-key"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

Option 3: OpenClaw Config

openclaw config set env.DASHSCOPE_API_KEY "your-dashscope-api-key"

Usage

Command Line

# After setting environment variable
./search.sh "latest tech news"

# Or one-liner
DASHSCOPE_API_KEY="your-key" ./search.sh "OpenAI GPT-5 release"

Via AI Assistant

Once configured, simply ask your AI assistant:

• "Search for today's tech news"
• "Find OpenAI's latest announcements"
• "Look up 2025 China EV sales data"

The AI will automatically use this skill to fetch real-time information.

How It Works

This skill connects to Alibaba Cloud Bailian's MCP SSE (Server-Sent Events) service:

1. Receives user search query
2. Establishes SSE connection to Bailian MCP server
3. Retrieves real-time search results
4. Returns structured content to the AI

MCP Configuration (Advanced)

For use with other MCP-compatible clients (Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "WebSearch": {
      "type": "sse",
      "name": "Alibaba Cloud Bailian Web Search",
      "description": "Real-time web search powered by Tongyi Lab's Text-Embedding, GTE-reRank, Query Rewriting, and Search Judgment models.",
      "baseUrl": "https://dashscope.aliyuncs.com/api/v1/mcps/WebSearch/sse",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${DASHSCOPE_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

API Reference

Environment Variables

Command Arguments

./search.sh <query>

Troubleshooting

Error: "DASHSCOPE_API_KEY environment variable is not set"

Solution: Ensure the environment variable is set:

export DASHSCOPE_API_KEY="your-key"

Empty results or timeout

1. Verify your API key is valid
2. Check network connectivity
3. Bailian service may take time to respond, please be patient

How to get DashScope API Key?

1. Visit Alibaba Cloud Bailian Console
2. Register/login with Alibaba Cloud account
3. Create an API Key in the console
4. Copy the key and set it as environment variable

Privacy & Security

• Your API key is never hardcoded in the skill files
• API key is read from environment variables only
• No data is stored or logged by this skill
• All requests go directly to Alibaba Cloud servers

License

MIT License - See LICENSE file for details

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please submit issues or pull requests via ClawHub.

Version History

v1.1.0 (2026-03-23)

• Fixed: Complete MCP protocol implementation (initialize + notifications/initialized)
• Fixed: Correct tool name bailian_web_search instead of websearch
• Fixed: Proper parameter passing from bash to Python
• Improved: Better error handling and debugging
• Improved: More robust SSE connection management

v1.0.0 (Initial Release)

• Initial release with basic search functionality

Acknowledgments

• Alibaba Cloud Bailian (DashScope) for providing the MCP service
• OpenClaw team for the skill framework
• MCP community for the protocol specification

Links

• Alibaba Cloud Bailian
• DashScope Documentation
• OpenClaw Documentation
• ClawHub Registry