python3 skills/browser-research-lite/scripts/browser_guard.py

Goal: perform reliable web retrieval without Brave/Tavily/Serper API keys.

When To Use

• web_search reports key/config errors (for example: missing_brave_api_key).
• You need factual lookup, definitions, theorem statements, or reference pages.
• Benchmark tasks need external evidence but remote search APIs are unavailable.

Core Policy

• Use local computation tools first for computable questions.
• If online retrieval is required, use the built-in browser tool directly.
• Prefer trusted sources (official docs, textbooks, university pages, Wikipedia as secondary).
• Cross-check at least 2 sources for non-trivial claims.

Browser Workflow

• Run browser availability guard first:

python3 skills/browser-research-lite/scripts/browser_guard.py

• If browser_available=false, stop browser retries and switch to local tools.

- If browser_running=false or browser_cdp_ready=false, attach browser manually: - open any page in Chrome with OpenClaw extension installed, - click the OpenClaw extension icon once to attach current tab, - rerun browser_guard.py.

• If browser_available=true, open a search page with concise query terms.
• Scan top results and open 2-3 high-quality sources.
• Extract only the minimal facts needed to answer the question.
• If pages are noisy, refine query with exact keywords and retry once.
• Produce final answer with concise rationale; avoid copying long passages.

Fallbacks

• If browsing is blocked/captcha-heavy, switch to alternative domains and shorter queries.
• If browser node is unavailable, avoid repeated browser calls in the same question.
• If browser remains unavailable, switch to skills/web-fetch-research-lite/SKILL.md and run URL-first retrieval via web_fetch.
• If no reliable source is found quickly, return best-effort answer and mark uncertainty.

Solidify Note

When this skill improves benchmark progress, record:

• trigger signal(s),
• source quality and retrieval steps,
• measurable effect on benchmark score/accuracy.