The Problem
Production AI agents that depend on a single search API have a single point of failure. When the search provider has an outage, rate limits you, or returns degraded results, the agent either hallucinates or fails. For customer-facing agents, this directly impacts user experience and trust.
The Scavio Solution
Implement a failover chain that tries multiple search providers in priority order. Primary: Scavio ($0.005/query, 6 platforms, AI Overview data). Secondary: Brave Search API (~$4-5/1K, independent index). Tertiary: cached results from previous successful queries. Each provider has a timeout and minimum result count threshold. The agent sees a single search function regardless of which provider responds.
Before
Before failover, the agent relied on one search provider. A 45-minute outage on a Tuesday afternoon meant 200+ user queries received responses without search grounding. Customer support received 15 complaints about incorrect information.
After
After implementing failover, the same provider outage was handled automatically. 97% of queries used the primary provider. During the 45-minute outage, 150 queries transparently fell back to the secondary provider. Zero user-visible failures. Zero support complaints.
Who It Is For
Production agent teams that need search reliability guarantees. SREs building resilient AI agent infrastructure. Teams whose agents are customer-facing and cannot tolerate search failures.
Key Benefits
- Near-100% search availability for production agents
- Transparent failover invisible to end users
- Primary provider handles 97%+ of queries, keeping costs predictable
- Cached results provide last-resort fallback for both providers down
- Logging per provider enables reliability tracking over time
Python Example
import requests
import json
from pathlib import Path
SCAVIO_KEY = "your_scavio_api_key"
BRAVE_KEY = "your_brave_api_key"
def failover_search(query: str) -> dict:
# Primary: Scavio
try:
res = requests.post(
"https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/search",
headers={"x-api-key": SCAVIO_KEY},
json={"platform": "google", "query": query, "ai_overview": True},
timeout=10,
)
if res.ok and len(res.json().get("organic", [])) >= 3:
return {"provider": "scavio", "data": res.json()}
except Exception:
pass
# Secondary: Brave
try:
res = requests.get(
"https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search",
headers={"X-Subscription-Token": BRAVE_KEY},
params={"q": query},
timeout=8,
)
if res.ok:
return {"provider": "brave", "data": res.json()}
except Exception:
pass
# Tertiary: cache
cache_path = Path("search_cache.json")
if cache_path.exists():
cache = json.loads(cache_path.read_text())
if query in cache:
return {"provider": "cache", "data": cache[query]}
return {"provider": "none", "data": {}}
result = failover_search("best search api for ai agents 2026")
print(f"Provider: {result['provider']}")JavaScript Example
const SCAVIO_KEY = "your_scavio_api_key";
const BRAVE_KEY = "your_brave_api_key";
async function failoverSearch(query) {
try {
const res = await fetch("https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/search", {
method: "POST",
headers: { "x-api-key": SCAVIO_KEY, "content-type": "application/json" },
body: JSON.stringify({ platform: "google", query, ai_overview: true }),
});
if (res.ok) { const d = await res.json(); if ((d.organic ?? []).length >= 3) return { provider: "scavio", data: d }; }
} catch {}
try {
const res = await fetch(`https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search?q=${encodeURIComponent(query)}`, {
headers: { "X-Subscription-Token": BRAVE_KEY },
});
if (res.ok) return { provider: "brave", data: await res.json() };
} catch {}
return { provider: "none", data: {} };
}
const r = await failoverSearch("best search api 2026");
console.log(`Provider: ${r.provider}`);Platforms Used
Web search with knowledge graph, PAA, and AI overviews