Perplexity Search

Run AI web searches using Perplexity Sonar models through LiteLLM and OpenRouter. Perplexity returns real-time, web-grounded answers with source citations — ideal for current information, recent literature, and facts beyond the model's training cutoff. One OpenRouter key covers all models; no separate Perplexity account needed.

When to use

Use for: current developments, latest publications, citation-grounded answers, verifying a claim against current sources, or anything past the training cutoff.

Skip for: arithmetic/logic, code execution, or facts well within training data (answer directly). For automatic backend routing prefer alterlab-research-lookup; for per-paper structured experimental-data extraction prefer alterlab-bgpt-search.

Setup (one-time)

# 1. Get a key at https://openrouter.ai/keys and add credits ($5+ recommended)
# 2. Configure (either form works)
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY='sk-or-v1-your-key-here'
python scripts/setup_env.py --api-key sk-or-v1-your-key-here   # writes .env