perplexity-search

perplexity-search is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop. It costs 99 tokens per session (3,171 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of perplexity-search, MIT.

A web-search skill that uses Perplexity models to find current information and return answers grounded in cited online sources. It works through LiteLLM and OpenRouter with one API key.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to search for recent news, technical developments, scientific papers, domain-specific facts, and comparisons that need current web evidence.
Why use it?
It helps coding agents check information that may have changed since their training data, while keeping the supporting sources attached to the result. This reduces reliance on unsupported or outdated answers.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: positional $N argument.

Good fit Use it to search for recent news, technical developments, scientific papers, domain-specific facts, and comparisons that need current web evidence.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/perplexity-search
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop --skill perplexity-search
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for perplexity-search

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/perplexity-search/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/perplexity-search)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/perplexity-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/perplexity-search/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for perplexity-search

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/perplexity-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/perplexity-search.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 99 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,171 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 95% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00099 $0.03171
Opus 5 $0.00049 $0.01586
Sonnet 5 $0.00020 $0.00634
Haiku 4.5 $0.00010 $0.00317

Measured 9d ago against content hash ea97eabf2243, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

perplexity-search scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 2 executable files (scripts/perplexity_search.py, scripts/setup_env.py), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

95% identical to perplexity-search — 6 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

corpus/perplexity-search/SKILL.md · 442 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 442 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Overview

Perform AI-powered web searches using Perplexity models through LiteLLM and OpenRouter. Perplexity provides real-time, web-grounded answers with source citations, making it ideal for finding current information, recent scientific literature, and facts beyond the model's training data cutoff.

This skill provides access to all Perplexity models through OpenRouter, requiring only a single API key (no separate Perplexity account needed).

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

  • Searching for current information or recent developments (2024 and beyond)
  • Finding latest scientific publications and research
  • Getting real-time answers grounded in web sources
  • Verifying facts with source citations
  • Conducting literature searches across multiple domains
  • Accessing information beyond the model's knowledge cutoff
  • Performing domain-specific research (biomedical, technical, clinical)
  • Comparing current approaches or technologies

Do not use for:

  • Simple calculations or logic problems (use directly)
  • Tasks requiring code execution (use standard tools)
  • Questions well within the model's training data (unless verification needed)

Quick Start

Setup (One-time)

  1. Get OpenRouter API key:

  2. Configure environment:

    # Set API key
    export OPENROUTER_API_KEY='sk-or-v1-your-key-here'
    
    # Or use setup script
    python scripts/setup_env.py --api-key sk-or-v1-your-key-here
    
  3. Install dependencies:

    uv pip install litellm
    
  4. Verify setup:

    python scripts/perplexity_search.py --check-setup
    

See references/openrouter_setup.md for detailed setup instructions, troubleshooting, and security best practices.

Basic Usage

Simple search:

python scripts/perplexity_search.py "What are the latest developments in CRISPR gene editing?"

Read the full file on GitHub · 442 lines

Files

What ships with it

6 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 442 lines · 99 tokens per session scan A ea97eabf2243

Subscribe to this mod's changes

perplexity-search is a skill published in the GitHub repository silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop (22 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 99 tokens to every session and 3,171 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 95% identical to perplexity-search, differing in 6 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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