modbender WeChat Search Skill
Search for WeChat Official Account (微信公众号) articles using a compliant, three-layer approach that prioritizes legal search APIs and falls back to respectful web scraping when needed.
Features
- Compliant Design: Prioritizes legal search APIs, respects robots.txt and rate limits
- Three-Layer Strategy:
- Primary: OpenClaw web_search (Brave Search API)
- Secondary: Tavily Search API (if Brave unavailable)
- Fallback: Direct page fetching from WeChat search
- Recent Results: Returns the 5 most recent articles by default (configurable)
- Time Filtering: Support for date range and recency filters
- Multiple Output Formats: Text, JSON, and markdown formats available
Prerequisites
- OpenClaw Web Tools: Requires
web_search,web_fetchtools to be available - API Keys (optional but recommended):
- Brave Search API Key (for primary search)
- Tavily API Key (for secondary search, already configured in your environment)
Usage
Basic Search
wechat-search "人工智能"
Advanced Options
# Return 10 results instead of default 5
wechat-search "机器学习" --max-results 10
# Search within past week
wechat-search "大模型" --past-week
# Custom date range
wechat-search "AI应用" --from 2026-01-01 --to 2026-02-01
# JSON output format
wechat-search "开源AI" --output json
# Force specific strategy
wechat-search "最新技术" --strategy tavily_only
Configuration
Create ~/.openclaw/wechat-search-config.json to customize behavior:
{
"defaultMaxResults": 5,
"maxResultsLimit": 20,
"requestDelayMs": 5000,
"cacheDurationHours": 1,
"userAgent": "OpenClaw-WeChat-Search-Bot/1.0 (+https://github.com/your-username/wechat-search-skill)"
}
Search Strategy Details
Layer 1: OpenClaw Web Search (Brave Search)
- Uses Brave Search API with
site:mp.weixin.qq.comfilter - Fastest and most reliable when API key is configured
- Respects search engine's indexing and ranking
Layer 2: Tavily Search API
- Activated when Brave Search is unavailable or fails
- Uses Tavily's AI-powered search with WeChat site restriction
- Provides high-quality, relevant results with good coverage
Layer 3: Direct Web Fetch
- Final fallback when both APIs are unavailable
- Scrapes WeChat search results directly from搜狗微信搜索
- Implements proper delays and respects robots.txt
- Parses HTML to extract article metadata
Compliance & Ethics
- Respects robots.txt: Checks and follows robots.txt directives
- Rate limiting: Minimum 5-second delay between requests
- Transparent identification: Clear User-Agent string identifying the bot
- Public content only: Only accesses publicly available articles
- No data retention: Does not store full article content, only metadata
Error Handling
- Automatic retry on network failures (up to 3 attempts)
- Graceful fallback between all three search strategies
- Clear error messages for debugging
- Handles API key missing scenarios gracefully
Future Enhancements
- RSS feed integration support
- Article content summarization
- Author/subscription management
- Enhanced filtering options
This skill is designed to be both useful and responsible, providing access to valuable WeChat Official Account content while respecting platform rules and legal requirements.