serpex

Official Python SDK for Serpex — a real-time web search API, plus page content extraction (extract) that turns any URL into LLM-ready markdown. Built for AI agents, LLM tools and RAG pipelines.

Installation

pip install serpex

Or with poetry:

poetry add serpex

Quick Start

from serpex import SerpexClient

# Initialize the client with your API key
client = SerpexClient('your-api-key-here')

# One search engine — no engine to pick
results = client.search({'q': 'python tutorial'})

# Or using SearchParams object for type safety
from serpex import SearchParams

params = SearchParams(q='python tutorial')
results = client.search(params)

print(results.results[0].title)

API Reference

SerpexClient

Constructor

SerpexClient(api_key: str, base_url: str = "https://api.serpex.dev")

• api_key: Your API key from the Serpex dashboard
• base_url: Optional base URL (defaults to 'https://api.serpex.dev')

Methods

extract(params: ExtractParams | Dict[str, Any]) -> ExtractResponse

Extract content from web pages and convert them to LLM-ready markdown data. Accepts up to 10 URLs per request.

# Basic usage
results = client.extract({
    'urls': [
        'https://example.com',
        'https://httpbin.org'
    ]
})

# With stealth mode and HTML output
results = client.extract({
    'urls': ['https://example.com'],
    'stealth': True,
    'format': 'html'
})

# Using ExtractParams object (type-safe approach)
from serpex import ExtractParams

params = ExtractParams(
    urls=['https://example.com'],
    stealth=True,
    format='html'
)
results = client.extract(params)

Extract Parameters

The ExtractParams dataclass supports extraction parameters:

@dataclass
class ExtractParams:
    # Required: URLs to extract (max 10)
    urls: List[str]

    # Optional: premium extraction mode for pages that standard extraction can't read (default: False)
    stealth: bool = False

    # Optional: Output format — 'markdown' (default) or 'html'
    format: str = 'markdown'

Extract Response Format

@dataclass
class ExtractResponse:
    success: bool
    results: List[ExtractResult]
    metadata: ExtractMetadata

@dataclass
class ExtractResult:
    url: str
    success: bool
    markdown: Optional[str] = None
    html: Optional[str] = None         # Populated when format='html'
    stealth: Optional[bool] = None     # Whether stealth mode was used for this result
    error: Optional[str] = None
    status_code: Optional[int] = None

@dataclass
class ExtractMetadata:
    total_urls: int
    processed_urls: int
    successful_crawls: int
    failed_crawls: int
    credits_used: int
    response_time: int
    timestamp: str
    cached_free: Optional[int] = None  # URLs served from cache (no credit charge)

Search Parameters

The SearchParams dataclass supports all search parameters:

@dataclass
class SearchParams:
    # Required: search query
    q: str

    # Optional: also fetch page content (markdown) for top results (default: False)
    include_content: bool = False

    # Optional: number of top results to fetch content for — must be exactly
    # 5 or 10 (default: 5). Only relevant when include_content is True.
    content_results: Literal[5, 10] = 5

The engine parameter (deprecated)

Serpex is one search engine, so there is nothing to select. The legacy engine / engines request parameters are deprecated and ignored by the API (since 2026-06); requests that still send them get a Deprecation response header. SearchParams(engine=...) and client.search({'q': ..., 'engine': ...}) are still accepted so existing code keeps working — the SDK emits a DeprecationWarning and does not send the value. The engines / engine response fields remain for compatibility.

Response Format

@dataclass
class SearchMetadata:
    number_of_results: int
    response_time: int
    timestamp: str
    credits_used: int
    from_cache: Optional[bool] = None
    status: Optional[str] = None
    # Present only when include_content was requested
    content_requested: Optional[int] = None
    content_delivered: Optional[int] = None

@dataclass
class SearchResult:
    title: str
    url: str
    snippet: str
    position: int
    engine: str
    img_src: Optional[str] = None
    duration: Optional[str] = None
    score: Optional[float] = None
    # Present only when include_content was requested. Best-effort — a
    # failed extraction sets content_error instead of content.
    content: Optional[str] = None
    content_error: Optional[str] = None

@dataclass
class SearchResponse:
    metadata: SearchMetadata
    id: str
    query: str
    engines: List[str]
    results: List[SearchResult]

Usage & credit balance

Check your credit balance and request history — useful before a large batch.

usage = client.usage()                 # last 30 days
week  = client.usage({"days": 7})     # 1-90 (larger values are capped at 90)

print(usage.credits.balance)           # credits remaining
print(usage.statistics.totalRequests)  # requests in the period
print(usage.statistics.engineStats)    # {"search": 120, "crawl": 30, "stealth": 5}

Stealth error codes

When stealth=True, a failed result carries a stable error_code alongside the human-readable error. Branch on the code rather than parsing the message — it tells you whether the problem is with your URL or with our service:

response = client.extract({"urls": urls, "stealth": True})

for r in response.results:
    if r.success:
        continue
    if r.error_code == "stealth_target_unreachable":
        pass  # The domain is dead — drop it from your list.
    elif r.error_code == "stealth_provider_unavailable":
        pass  # Our side. Safe to retry shortly.

Error Handling

The SDK raises SerpApiException for API errors:

from serpex import SerpexClient, SerpApiException

try:
    results = client.search(SearchParams(q='test query'))
except SerpApiException as e:
    print(f"API error: {e}")
    print(f"Status code: {e.status_code}")
    print(f"Details: {e.details}")

Examples

Basic Search

results = client.search({
    'q': 'coffee shops near me'
})

Search with Page Content

Fetch page content (markdown) for the top results inline with the search — best-effort, so check each result for content vs content_error.

results = client.search({
    'q': 'best espresso machines 2025',
    'include_content': True,
    'content_results': 10,  # must be exactly 5 or 10
})

print(
    f"Content delivered for {results.metadata.content_delivered}/"
    f"{results.metadata.content_requested} requested results"
)

for result in results.results:
    if result.content:
        print(f"✅ {result.url}: {len(result.content)} chars of markdown")
    elif result.content_error:
        print(f"❌ {result.url}: {result.content_error}")

Extract Web Content to LLM-Ready Data

Extract from a Single URL

# Extract content from one website (markdown, default)
result = client.extract({
    'urls': ['https://example.com']
})

if result.results[0].success:
    print(f"✅ Extracted {len(result.results[0].markdown)} characters")
    print("Markdown content:", result.results[0].markdown[:200] + "...")

# Extract with stealth mode and HTML output
stealth_result = client.extract({
    'urls': ['https://example.com'],
    'stealth': True,
    'format': 'html'
})

if stealth_result.results[0].success:
    print("HTML content:", stealth_result.results[0].html[:200])

Extract from Multiple URLs (up to 10 at once)

# Extract content from multiple websites (up to 10 URLs)
extract_results = client.extract({
    'urls': [
        'https://example.com',
        'https://httpbin.org',
        'https://github.com'
    ]
})

print(f"Successfully extracted {extract_results.metadata.successful_crawls} pages")
print(f"Total credits used: {extract_results.metadata.credits_used}")

for result in extract_results.results:
    if result.success:
        print(f"✅ {result.url}: {len(result.markdown)} characters")
        # Use result.markdown for LLM processing
    else:
        print(f"❌ {result.url}: {result.error}")

Sample Response

# Example response structure
{
    'success': True,
    'results': [
        {
            'url': 'https://example.com',
            'success': True,
            'markdown': '# Example Domain\n\nThis domain is for use in...',
            'stealth': False,
            'status_code': 200
        }
    ],
    'metadata': {
        'total_urls': 1,
        'processed_urls': 1,
        'successful_crawls': 1,
        'failed_crawls': 0,
        'credits_used': 3,
        'cached_free': 0,
        'response_time': 255,
        'timestamp': '2025-11-13T10:30:00.000Z'
    }
}

Using ExtractParams Object

from serpex import ExtractParams

params = ExtractParams(urls=[
    'https://example.com',
    'https://httpbin.org'
])
results = client.extract(params)

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• requests

License

MIT