How to Use OpenClaw Kimi Search

Kimi Search lets OpenClaw use Moonshot web search as a web_search provider. Like Gemini and Grok search, the documented behavior is a synthesized answer with inline citations rather than a traditional list of results. It is useful when you want a compact cited answer and already use Moonshot or Kimi in your model stack.

30-second answer

Set KIMI_API_KEY or MOONSHOT_API_KEY in the Gateway environment, or configure plugins.entries.moonshot.config.webSearch with apiKey, baseUrl, and model. Set tools.web.search.provider to kimi. If baseUrl is omitted, OpenClaw defaults to https://api.moonshot.ai/v1. If model is omitted, it defaults to kimi-k2.6.

Region handling

The docs call out region carefully. During onboarding or openclaw configure --section web, OpenClaw can ask for the Moonshot API region: the international host or the China host. If your chat provider base URL is set to https://api.moonshot.cn/v1, OpenClaw reuses that same host for Kimi web_search when a specific search base URL is omitted. That avoids sending China-platform keys to the international endpoint by mistake.

Supported parameters

Kimi search supports query. count is accepted for shared web_search compatibility, but it still returns one synthesized answer with citations instead of a count-sized list. Provider-specific filters are not currently supported. If you need date filters, language filters, or domain filters, choose another provider.

Good use cases

Use Kimi for concise cited answers, region-aware Moonshot setups, and workflows where a synthesized answer is the output. It is not ideal for scraping, competitive SERP analysis, or pipelines that need to rank individual URLs.

Verification

After configuration, run a small web_search query and inspect whether the answer includes citations. If you see authentication failures, check the base URL and key region first. Region mismatch is one of the easiest mistakes to make with Moonshot.

Playbook angle

The Playbook advice is to keep Kimi’s response shape honest in the runbook. Cited answer, yes. Structured SERP list, no.

Runbook checklist

Before you automate this, run one small acceptance test with harmless input. Confirm the tool is available to the right agent, the credential is loaded from config or environment, the output shape matches the workflow, and the failure message is understandable to a tired operator. If the feature touches money, public channels, logged-in browsers, host commands, or customer data, put a review step before the side effect. If it only reads data, still record the source and timestamp so future sessions do not treat stale context as fresh truth. Keep the first version narrow, then expand once the logs show the agent is choosing the right tool for the right reason. When the docs are incomplete, prefer a conservative sentence over a clever invented shortcut that future agents cannot reliably verify. Add one monitoring habit as well: after the first real run, check the transcript or logs for missing prerequisites, broad prompts, stale assumptions, and accidental side effects. Tighten the instruction while the failure is fresh. The best OpenClaw workflows improve in small, documented passes instead of one giant rewrite after something breaks in public. For SEO pages, that same discipline matters: do not promise hidden capabilities, paid-provider limits, or setup shortcuts unless the current docs say so. Trust compounds when the guide is accurate even in the boring operational edge cases that matter during real maintenance windows.

Operator note

How to Use OpenClaw Kimi Search works best when it is written into a small runbook instead of treated as a magic switch. Record who owns the workflow, which config keys are allowed, which credentials are required, what the agent may do without approval, and what counts as a failure. OpenClaw gives agents broad tools, but the reliable version is boring: one source of truth, one verification step, and one rollback path when a provider or channel behaves differently than expected.