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Perplexity

The Perplexity plugin provides web search capabilities through the Perplexity Search API or Perplexity Sonar via OpenRouter.

note

This page is the Perplexity **provider** setup. For the Perplexity **tool** (how the agent uses it), see [Perplexity tool](/tools/perplexity-search).

Property	Value
Type	Web search provider (not a model provider)
Auth	text `PERPLEXITY_API_KEY` (direct) or text `OPENROUTER_API_KEY` (via OpenRouter)
Config path	text `plugins.entries.perplexity.config.webSearch.apiKey`

Getting started

Set the API key

Run the interactive web-search configuration flow:


text
```bash}
openclaw configure --section web
```

Or set the key directly:

```bash}
openclaw config set plugins.entries.perplexity.config.webSearch.apiKey "pplx-xxxxxxxxxxxx"
```

Start searching

The agent will automatically use Perplexity for web searches once the key is configured. No additional steps are required.

Search modes

The plugin auto-selects the transport based on API key prefix:

When your key starts with `pplx-`, OpenClaw uses the native Perplexity Search API. This transport returns structured results and supports domain, language, and date filters (see filtering options below). When your key starts with `sk-or-`, OpenClaw routes through OpenRouter using the Perplexity Sonar model. This transport returns AI-synthesized answers with citations.

Key prefix	Transport	Features
text `pplx-`	Native Perplexity Search API	Structured results, domain/language/date filters
text `sk-or-`	OpenRouter (Sonar)	AI-synthesized answers with citations

Native API filtering

note

Filtering options are only available when using the native Perplexity API (`pplx-` key). OpenRouter/Sonar searches do not support these parameters.

When using the native Perplexity API, searches support the following filters:

Filter	Description	Example
Country	2-letter country code	text `us` , text `de` , text `jp`
Language	ISO 639-1 language code	text `en` , text `fr` , text `zh`
Date range	Recency window	text `day` , text `week` , text `month` , text `year`
Domain filters	Allowlist or denylist (max 20 domains)	text `example.com`
Content budget	Token limits per response / per page	text `max_tokens` , text `max_tokens_per_page`

OpenClaw Docs

Perplexity

note

Getting started

Set the API key

Start searching

Search modes

Native API filtering

note

Advanced configuration

Related

Perplexity search tool

Configuration reference