Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore vs Tavily API + MCP

Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore

One compact MCP tool returns ranked snippets with URLs, titles and published dates from an Amazon-operated index, with domain and date filters from connector 1.2.0, at $7 per 1,000 queries. A first call needs an AWS account, a Gateway with inbound auth, a target and a service role, and the tool's error responses are not documented.

Tavily API + MCP

Keyless search and extract, plus a free 1,000 credits a month with no card. x402 covers advanced search only, not extract, map, crawl or research.

Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore

1. Call tools/list on the gateway and take the tool's name from it. AWS's call examples name gateway tools by target and tool
2. Keep query to 200 characters and maxResults between 1 and 25 (default 10). The published schema states these limits only in descriptions
3. Check the target's connector version before sending filters. Version 1.1.0, the default, exposes only query and maxResults
4. Keep each result's URL and title with any answer built from it. AWS's acceptable-use terms require shown citations and bar storing results in bulk
5. On a throttled request, wait the retryAfter seconds in the error body. The default quota is 10 Web Search requests a second, adjustable

Tavily API + MCP

1. Try X-Tavily-Access-Mode: keyless first for search and extract. Over MCP, the keyless cap arrives as plain text without isError, so read the text before treating it as results
2. Send the key in Authorization: Bearer, not ?tavilyApiKey= in the MCP URL
3. On 429, wait for Retry-After. A 432 or 433 means a spend limit, and retrying won't help
4. Run /map before /crawl to bound the crawl, since crawl is billed as map plus extract
5. Research is async and runs 4 to 250 credits. Create the task, then poll /research/{request_id}