Online Variant | Real-Time Web Search | OpenRouter

Deprecated

The :online variant is deprecated. Use the openrouter:web_search server tool instead, which gives the model control over when and how often to search.

If your application already provides the web_search tool (e.g. OpenAI’s built-in web search tool type), OpenRouter automatically recognizes it and hoists it to the openrouter:web_search server tool. This means you can safely remove the :online suffix from any model slug — as long as the application exposes the web_search tool, web search functionality will still work as a server tool with any model on OpenRouter.

The :online variant enables real-time web search capabilities for any model on OpenRouter.

Usage

Append :online to any model ID:

1 {
2   "model": "openai/gpt-5.2:online"
3 }

This is a shortcut for using the web plugin, and is exactly equivalent to:

1 {
2   "model": "openrouter/auto",
3   "plugins": [{ "id": "web" }]
4 }

Details

The Online variant incorporates relevant web search results into model responses, providing access to real-time information and current events. This is particularly useful for queries that require up-to-date information beyond the model’s training data.

For the recommended approach, see: Web Search Server Tool. For legacy plugin details, see: Web Search Plugin.