Documentation discrepancy regarding web search

Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Oct 31, 2025 by matssk Closed Nov 15, 2025

💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What is the type of issue?

_No response_

What is the issue?

When starting Codex CLI, it shows the following message:

⚠ tools.web_search is deprecated. Use web_search_request instead.
You can either enable it using the CLI with --enable web_search_request or through the config.toml file with
[features].web_search_request

But in the documentation at https://github.com/openai/codex/blob/main/docs/config.md it says that web_search_request is the deprecated one

"tools.web_search boolean Enable web search tool (alias: web_search_request) (default: false)."

Where did you find it?

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

4 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 10 months ago

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

#6014

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takaram · 9 months ago

The document does not look wrong.

features.web_search_request is the recommended config
tools.web_search and tools.web_search_request are deprecated

You are mixing up features.web_search_request and tools.web_search_request.
I agree that the document is bit confusing though 😅

psychananaz · 9 months ago

"[features].web_search_request" mixes a table header with a key on the same line and is invalid
valid syntax would be one of:

features.web_search_request = true

[features]
web_search_request = true

just a note, since it can be confusing to users not familiar with TOML if they encounter the error.

etraut-openai contributor · 9 months ago

Here's a PR I just posted for review.