DeepSeek has opened two interfaces for its self-developed search engine: Search returns structured search results based on queries, while Fetch converts individual web pages into Markdown; calls initiated via DeepSeek Harness, Claude Code, and Codex server-side tools are currently free for API users, with billing starting at 2026-10-31 16:00 UTC (11 1 0 Beijing Time).
Confidence: High (80) · Event Time 2026-10-16
Reasoning
- 10-17 launched (recent development, not within the past 24 hours, 10-27 to 10-29 already collected); listed again this period solely as a billing reminder: calculated based on 10-30 Beijing Time morning, billing begins in approximately one and a half days.
- Official pricing: 0.75 USD per 1,000 calls per endpoint, sharing the same Key as the model API; the official news page and the Search & Fetch guide are consistent.
- Search count ranges from 1 to 50 (default 10), query length is 1 to 128 characters, supporting syntax such as site:, -site:, lang:, after: / before:; results include a rerank_score from 0 to 3 (above 1.5 is considered high quality) and an authority rating from 0 to 4.
Usage
- POST https://api.deepseek.com/v1/tools/search，请求体如 {"query": "…", "count": 5, "need_content": true}; POST https://api.deepseek.com/v1/tools/fetch，请求体 {"url": "…"} (URL must not exceed 8192 characters and cannot contain username/password).
- Include Authorization: Bearer <API Key> and Content-Type: application/json in request headers; those frequently performing online searches within Harness / Claude Code / Codex should check their call volume before billing begins.
Risks
- The official statement claims the index covers hundreds of billions of web pages and filters out SEO spam and low-quality AIGC, but no verifiable search quality evaluation has been provided.
- Fetch is subject to target website availability and access policies, so not all pages may be retrievable; billing details are subject to the pricing page in api-docs.
Open · DeepSeek API Documentation · News 2026/10/17 · DeepSeek API Documentation · Search & Fetch Guide