Choose the right Parallel API and configuration

This skill covers four Parallel APIs for adding web data to an app. Search finds pages, Extract reads them, Responses answers a question, Task fills a schema.

Search and Extract are one pattern, not two choices. Search locates the pages and returns excerpts; Extract returns the full content of the ones worth reading. Most agent integrations want both.

Choose once, while writing the integration — not on every request. A live classifier in the request path buys flexibility nobody asked for and charges a model round-trip for it on every call. Decide here; hard-code the result.

Most disappointing results come from choosing the wrong API or configuration, not from the underlying quality: the right API at the wrong tier, or the right tier with the wrong knobs. Choose the API first, tier second, knobs third — in that order.

Setup