LangChain4j Web Search

Since Camel 4.8

Only producer is supported

The LangChain4j Web Search component provides support for web searching using the LangChain4j Web Search Engines.

Maven users will need to add the following dependency to their pom.xml for this component:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
    <artifactId>camel-langchain4j-web-search</artifactId>
    <version>x.x.x</version>
    <!-- use the same version as your Camel core version -->
</dependency>

URI format

langchain4j-web-search:searchId[?options]

Where searchId can be any string to uniquely identify the endpoint

Configuring Options

Camel components are configured on two separate levels:

  • component level

  • endpoint level

Configuring Component Options

At the component level, you set general and shared configurations that are, then, inherited by the endpoints. It is the highest configuration level.

For example, a component may have security settings, credentials for authentication, urls for network connection and so forth.

Some components only have a few options, and others may have many. Because components typically have pre-configured defaults that are commonly used, then you may often only need to configure a few options on a component; or none at all.

You can configure components using:

  • the Component DSL.

  • in a configuration file (application.properties, *.yaml files, etc).

  • directly in the Java code.

Configuring Endpoint Options

You usually spend more time setting up endpoints because they have many options. These options help you customize what you want the endpoint to do. The options are also categorized into whether the endpoint is used as a consumer (from), as a producer (to), or both.

Configuring endpoints is most often done directly in the endpoint URI as path and query parameters. You can also use the Endpoint DSL and DataFormat DSL as a type safe way of configuring endpoints and data formats in Java.

A good practice when configuring options is to use Property Placeholders.

Property placeholders provide a few benefits:

  • They help prevent using hardcoded urls, port numbers, sensitive information, and other settings.

  • They allow externalizing the configuration from the code.

  • They help the code to become more flexible and reusable.

The following two sections list all the options, firstly for the component followed by the endpoint.

Component Options

The LangChain4j Web Search component supports 2 options, which are listed below.

Name Description Default Type

lazyStartProducer (producer)

Whether the producer should be started lazy (on the first message). By starting lazy you can use this to allow CamelContext and routes to startup in situations where a producer may otherwise fail during starting and cause the route to fail being started. By deferring this startup to be lazy then the startup failure can be handled during routing messages via Camel’s routing error handlers. Beware that when the first message is processed then creating and starting the producer may take a little time and prolong the total processing time of the processing.

false

boolean

autowiredEnabled (advanced)

Whether autowiring is enabled. This is used for automatic autowiring options (the option must be marked as autowired) by looking up in the registry to find if there is a single instance of matching type, which then gets configured on the component. This can be used for automatic configuring JDBC data sources, JMS connection factories, AWS Clients, etc.

true

boolean

Endpoint Options

The LangChain4j Web Search endpoint is configured using URI syntax:

langchain4j-web-search:searchId

With the following path and query parameters:

Path Parameters (1 parameters)

Name Description Default Type

searchId (producer)

Required The id.

String

Query Parameters (11 parameters)

Name Description Default Type

additionalParams (producer)

Autowired The additionalParams is the additional parameters for the search request are a map of key-value pairs that represent additional parameters for the search request.

Map

geoLocation (producer)

The geoLocation is the desired geolocation for search results. Each search engine may have a different set of supported geolocations.

String

language (producer)

The language is the desired language for search results. The expected values may vary depending on the search engine.

String

maxResults (producer)

Required The maxResults is the expected number of results to be found if the search request were made. Each search engine may have a different limit for the maximum number of results that can be returned.

1

Integer

resultType (producer)

Required The resultType is the result type of the request. Valid values are LANGCHAIN4J_WEB_SEARCH_ORGANIC_RESULT, CONTENT, or SNIPPET. CONTENT is the default value; it will return a list of String . You can also specify to return either the Langchain4j Web Search Organic Result object (using LANGCHAIN4J_WEB_SEARCH_ORGANIC_RESULT) or snippet (using SNIPPET) for each result. If maxResults is equal to 1, the response will be a single object instead of a list.

Enum values:

  • LANGCHAIN4J_WEB_SEARCH_ORGANIC_RESULT

  • CONTENT

  • SNIPPET

CONTENT

LangChain4jWebSearchResultType

safeSearch (producer)

The safeSearch is the safe search flag, indicating whether to enable or disable safe search.

Boolean

startIndex (producer)

The startIndex is the start index for search results, which may vary depending on the search engine.

Integer

startPage (producer)

The startPage is the start page number for search results.

Integer

webSearchEngine (producer)

Autowired Required The WebSearchEngine engine to use. This is mandatory. Use one of the implementations from Langchain4j web search engines.

WebSearchEngine

lazyStartProducer (producer (advanced))

Whether the producer should be started lazy (on the first message). By starting lazy you can use this to allow CamelContext and routes to startup in situations where a producer may otherwise fail during starting and cause the route to fail being started. By deferring this startup to be lazy then the startup failure can be handled during routing messages via Camel’s routing error handlers. Beware that when the first message is processed then creating and starting the producer may take a little time and prolong the total processing time of the processing.

false

boolean

webSearchRequest (advanced)

Autowired The webSearchRequest is the custom WebSearchRequest - advanced.

WebSearchRequest

Spring Boot Auto-Configuration

When using langchain4j-web-search with Spring Boot make sure to use the following Maven dependency to have support for auto configuration:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.camel.springboot</groupId>
  <artifactId>camel-langchain4j-web-search-starter</artifactId>
  <version>x.x.x</version>
  <!-- use the same version as your Camel core version -->
</dependency>

The component supports 3 options, which are listed below.

Name Description Default Type

camel.component.langchain4j-web-search.autowired-enabled

Whether autowiring is enabled. This is used for automatic autowiring options (the option must be marked as autowired) by looking up in the registry to find if there is a single instance of matching type, which then gets configured on the component. This can be used for automatic configuring JDBC data sources, JMS connection factories, AWS Clients, etc.

true

Boolean

camel.component.langchain4j-web-search.enabled

Whether to enable auto configuration of the langchain4j-web-search component. This is enabled by default.

Boolean

camel.component.langchain4j-web-search.lazy-start-producer

Whether the producer should be started lazy (on the first message). By starting lazy you can use this to allow CamelContext and routes to startup in situations where a producer may otherwise fail during starting and cause the route to fail being started. By deferring this startup to be lazy then the startup failure can be handled during routing messages via Camel’s routing error handlers. Beware that when the first message is processed then creating and starting the producer may take a little time and prolong the total processing time of the processing.

false

Boolean

Usage

Using a specific Web Search Engine

The Camel LangChain4j web search component provides an abstraction for interacting with various types of Web Search Engines supported by LangChain4j.

To integrate with a specific Web Search Engine, users should follow the steps described below, which explain how to integrate with Tavily.

Add the dependency for LangChain4j Tavily Web Search Engine support :

<dependency>
      <groupId>dev.langchain4j</groupId>
      <artifactId>langchain4j-web-search-engine-tavily</artifactId>
    <version>x.x.x</version>
</dependency>

Initialize the Web Search Engine instance, and bind it to the Camel Registry:

Example:
@BindToRegistry("web-search-engine")
WebSearchEngine tavilyWebSearchEngine = TavilyWebSearchEngine.builder()
    .apiKey(tavilyApiKey)
    .includeRawContent(true)
    .build();

The web search engine will be autowired automatically if its bound name is web-search-engine. Otherwise, it should be added as a configured parameter to the Camel route.

Example:
 from("direct:web-search")
      .to("langchain4j-web-search:test?webSearchEngine=#web-search-engine-test")

To switch to another Web Search Engine and its corresponding dependency, replace the langchain4j-web-search-engine-tavily dependency with the appropriate dependency for the desired web search engine. Update the initialization parameters accordingly in the code snippet provided above.

Customizing Web Search Results

By default, the maxResults property is set to 1. You can adjust this value to retrieve a list of results.

Retrieving a single result or a list of strings

When maxResults is set to 1, you can by default retrieve by default the content as a single string.

Example:
String response = template.requestBody("langchain4j-web-search:test", "Who won the European Cup in 2024?", String.class);

When maxResults is greater than 1, you can retrieve a list of strings.

Example:
List<String> responses = template.requestBody("langchain4j-web-search:test?maxResults=3", "Who won the European Cup in 2024?", List.class);

Retrieving different types of Results

You can get different types of Results.

When resultType = SNIPPET, you will get a single or list (depending on maxResults value) of Strings containing the snippets.

When resultType = LANGCHAIN4J_WEB_SEARCH_ORGANIC_RESULT, you will get a single or list (depending on maxResults value) of Objects of type WebSearchOrganicResult containing all the response created under the hood by Langchain4j Web Search.

Advanced usage of WebSearchRequest

When defining a WebSearchRequest, the Camel LangChain4j web search component will default to this request, instead of creating one from the body and config parameters.

When using a WebSearchRequest, the body and the parameters of the search will be ignored. Use this parameter with caution.

A WebSearchRequest should be bound to the registry.

Example of binding the request to the registry.
@BindToRegistry("web-search-request")
WebSearchRequest request = WebSearchRequest.builder()
    .searchTerms("Who won the European Cup in 2024?")
    .maxResults(2)
    .build();

The request will be autowired automatically if its bound name is web-search-request. Otherwise, it should be added as a configured parameter to the Camel route.

Example of route:
 from("direct:web-search")
      .to("langchain4j-web-search:test?webSearchRequest=#searchRequestTest");
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