DeepSeek opens Search and Fetch: find a link, then check the original

On October 17, 2026, DeepSeek announced access to its Search and Fetch APIs. An API is an interface programs can call: Search finds pages for a query, while Fetch extracts content from a URL, helping AI assistants obtain external material before answering.

The announcement also sets a deadline: the free period for server-side search and fetch tools used through the DeepSeek API in DeepSeek Harness, Claude Code and Codex ends at 00:00 Beijing time on November 1, 2026. This applies to those API tool calls, not every chat message. Each endpoint costs $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests that produce results. Empty searches, failures and timeouts are not billed. Billing scope

Suppose you are building a product-update summary tool. A search summary may omit platform restrictions or rollout conditions. Reading every result, on the other hand, can add irrelevant requests.

You can first search for candidate pages, select an official announcement, retrieve it and keep its link with the summary. To check whether a feature is available, look for dates and eligibility in the body before describing it. This is a suggested workflow; sufficient evidence still depends on what the page contains.

Keeping the search results and retrieved content separately also helps diagnose gaps: did you fail to find a useful page, or find one that could not be read? A search result is not a verified answer.

Prepare a working DeepSeek API account, API key and balance. Requests use Bearer authentication. Store the key in local or server configuration, not a public page.

1. POST JSON to https://api.deepseek.com/v1/tools/search, for example {"query":"DeepSeek V4.1 Flash site:api-docs.deepseek.com","count":3}. This is a suggested query. Inspect titles, URLs and summaries in results; an empty array means no matches. Search reference
2. Select a relevant official page. Put its returned URL into {"url":"the selected full URL"} and POST it to https://api.deepseek.com/v1/tools/fetch. The response's content contains Markdown and title contains the page title. Fetch reference
3. Check dates, scope and original wording before summarizing, and preserve the source link. Retrieval depends on the site's availability and access rules. If it fails, for example with a 404, record that the body was not obtained; a search summary cannot stand in for having read it.
4. Check a few requests and their costs before integrating the workflow. One Search with results plus one Fetch with content totals $0.0015 at the published rates. That covers only these two tools; check model-generation and other charges separately. Billing and errors