What it does
Fetches a URL via HTTP and converts the response to clean text:
- HTML — converted to readable text (headings, lists, links preserved)
- JSON — pretty-printed
- Plain text — returned as-is
Much faster and cheaper than launching a browser. The assistant prefers this for server-rendered pages and direct URLs.
Requirements
None. Web fetch is always available — no configuration needed.
How the assistant uses it
When the assistant needs to read a web page and doesn’t need to interact with it (no clicking, no JavaScript rendering), it calls web_fetch with a URL. Common scenarios:
- Reading documentation pages
- Fetching API responses
- Reading articles or blog posts
- Checking content at a URL you shared in chat
Configuration
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|
maxChars | 20,000 | Output truncation limit |
timeoutMs | 15,000 ms | Request timeout |
userAgent | Spaceduck/1.0 | User-agent string sent with requests |
Limitations
- No JavaScript execution — won’t work for SPAs or client-rendered pages (use the browser tool instead)
- No authentication — can’t access pages behind login
- Follows redirects automatically
- Truncates output at
maxChars to stay within LLM context limits
If the assistant says it can’t read a page or gets empty content, the page likely requires JavaScript. Ask it to use the browser tool instead.
