Web IQ Python SDK

Official Python SDK for Web IQ APIs.

Installation

pip install webiq

Quick Start

import os
from webiq import WebIQClient
from webiq.types import BrowseContentFormat, ContentFormat

with WebIQClient(api_key="your-api-key") as client:
    # Web search with content format
    response = client.web.search(
        "Python programming",
        max_results=5,
        content_format=ContentFormat.html,
    )
    for result in response.webResults or []:
        print(f"{result.title}: {result.url}")

    # News search
    news = client.news.search("technology", max_results=5)
    for item in news.newsResults or []:
        print(f"{item.title} - {item.source}")

    # Video search
    videos = client.videos.search("machine learning tutorial", max_results=5)
    for video in videos.videoResults or []:
        print(f"{video.title} ({video.length})")

    # Browse a URL in markdown format
    page = client.browse.fetch("https://www.microsoft.com", content_format=BrowseContentFormat.markdown)
    print(page.content)

    # Classic search with multiple answer types
    classic = client.classic.search(
        query="Artificial intelligence trends",
        response_filter=["webResults"],
    )
    # response_filter selects which answer types come back; the matching
    # attributes (e.g. classic.webResults) are populated dynamically.
    print(f"Web Results ({len(classic.webResults or [])}):")
    for r in classic.webResults or []:
        print(f"  - {r['title']}: {r['url']}")

Authentication

API Key

Get an API key at webiq.microsoft.ai.

import os
from webiq import WebIQClient

client = WebIQClient(api_key=os.environ["WEBIQ_API_KEY"])

EntraID (Azure AD)

Pass any azure-identity TokenCredential:

from azure.identity import DefaultAzureCredential
from webiq import WebIQClient

client = WebIQClient(credential=DefaultAzureCredential())

Async Support

import asyncio
from webiq import WebIQAsyncClient

async def main():
    async with WebIQAsyncClient(api_key="your-api-key") as client:
        web, news = await asyncio.gather(
            client.web.search("async Python"),
            client.news.search("programming"),
        )
        for result in web.webResults or []:
            print(result.title)

asyncio.run(main())

API Reference

Web Search

response = client.web.search(
    query="search query",         # Required (1-1000 chars)
    max_results=10,               # 1-50, default 10
    language="en",                # ISO 639-1 code
    region="US",                  # Country/region code
    location="lat:40.7;long:-74.0",  # Optional
    content_format=ContentFormat.html,
    max_length=10000,             # Max content chars (1-500000)
    custom_search_config_id="my-config",  # Optional custom search config
    include_domains=["example.com"],       # Optional allowlist (max 250)
    exclude_domains=["spam.example"],      # Optional blocklist (max 250)
)
# response.webResults → list of {title, url, content, lastUpdatedAt, contentTier, ...}

News Search

response = client.news.search(
    query="search query",         # Required (1-1000 chars)
    max_results=10,               # 1-20, default 10
    language="en",
    region="US",
    location="lat:40.7;long:-74.0",  # Optional
    content_format=ContentFormat.text,
    max_length=10000,
)
# response.newsResults → list of {title, url, content, source, ...}

Video Search

response = client.videos.search(
    query="search query",         # Required (1-1000 chars)
    max_results=30,               # 1-30, default 30
    language="en",
    region="US",
    enable_playlist=True,
    freshness="month",            # week, month, year
)
# response.videoResults → list of {title, url, length, viewCount, moments, ...}
# response.playlists → list of {title, videos, ...}

Browse

response = client.browse.fetch(
    url="https://www.microsoft.com",    # Required
    max_length=10000,                   # Max content chars (1-500000)
    live_crawl="fallback",              # "none" (default) | "fallback" | "force"
    include_web_links=True,
    include_image_links=True,
    render_dynamic_pages=False,
    content_format=BrowseContentFormat.markdown,
)
# response → {url, title, content, isAdult, retryAfter, traceId, ...}

Image Search

from webiq.types import ImageAspectRatio, ImageSize, SafeSearch

response = client.images.search(
    query="search query",         # Required (1-1000 chars)
    max_results=30,               # 1-30, default 30
    language="en",
    region="US",
    aspect_ratio=ImageAspectRatio.wide,  # square, wide, tall
    image_size=ImageSize.large,          # small, medium, large, extraLarge
    safe_search=SafeSearch.strict,       # off, strict
    watermark_free=True,
)
# response.imageResults → list of {title, url, hostPageUrl, caption, width, height, thumbnailUrl, ...}

Classic Search

Given a query, classic search will search and retrieve content from webpages, images, videos, news, weather, sports, etc.

from webiq.types import ContentFormat, SafeSearchMode

response = client.classic.search(
    query="search query",         # Required (1-1000 chars)
    max_answer_types=6,           # 1-6, default 6
    language="en",                # ISO 639-1/2 or BCP 47
    region="US",                  # Country/region code
    location="lat:40.7;long:-74.0",  # Optional
    max_results_web=10,           # 1-50, default 10
    max_length=10000,             # Max content chars (1-500000)
    content_format=ContentFormat.html,
    freshness="month",            # day, week, month, year, or date range
    response_filter=["webResults", "newsResults"],  # Answer types to include
    safe_search=SafeSearchMode.moderate,   # off, moderate, strict
)
# response.querySignals → {originalQuery, normalizedQuery, isDefensive, isAdult, isNav, isFresh}
# response.traceId → str
# Additional dynamic fields for different answer types are exposed by
# Pydantic's ``extra="allow"`` and come back as raw ``dict`` values — use
# index access (``r['title']``), not attribute access (``r.title``).
# response filter: Allowed types: 'microAnswerResults', 'videoResults', 'dictionaryResults', 'packageTrackingResults', 'lyricsResults', 'movieResults', 'eventResults', 'jobResults', 'weatherResults', 'appResults', 'techHelpResults', 'directionResults', 'factCarouselResults', 'factResults', 'healthResults', 'recipeResults', 'questionAndAnswerResults', 'computationResults', 'prayerTimeResults', 'financeResults', 'mapResults', 'webResults', 'newsResults', 'imageResults', 'sportsResults', 'entityResults', 'realEstateResults', 'timeZoneResults', 'travelResults', 'placeResults'

Enum Types

Some parameters require enum values instead of plain strings. Import them from webiq.types:

from webiq.types import BrowseContentFormat, ContentFormat

# ContentFormat: format of returned content for web, news, and classic search
ContentFormat.passage    # Selected passages only (plain text)
ContentFormat.text       # Full page text (plain text)
ContentFormat.html       # HTML format (default for web search)
ContentFormat.markdown   # Markdown format

# BrowseContentFormat: format for browse (no passage option)
BrowseContentFormat.text       # Full page text
BrowseContentFormat.html       # HTML format (default)
BrowseContentFormat.markdown   # Markdown format

# Usage in web search
response = client.web.search("query", content_format=ContentFormat.markdown)

# Usage in browse
page = client.browse.fetch("https://www.microsoft.com", content_format=BrowseContentFormat.html)

Configuration

Timeout and Retry

The client accepts timeout (seconds) and retry (a RetryPolicy) as top-level keyword arguments. Per-call timeout on each resource method overrides the client-level default.

from webiq import WebIQClient, RetryPolicy

client = WebIQClient(
    api_key="your-api-key",
    timeout=10.0,                  # seconds (default: 10.0)
    retry=RetryPolicy(
        max_retries=2,             # defaults shown
        base_delay_s=0.25,
        max_delay_s=4.0,
    ),
)

# Per-call overrides
response = client.web.search("query", language="de", region="DE", timeout=30.0)

Customized HTTP client (proxy, TLS, ...)

For advanced HTTP settings — proxy, custom TLS, connection pooling, etc. — pass a pre-configured httpx.Client via http_client. Note: the SDK does not close caller-owned clients.

import httpx
from webiq import WebIQClient, WebIQAsyncClient

# sync:
http_client = httpx.Client(
    base_url="https://api.microsoft.ai/v3",
    proxy="http://proxy:8080",
)
client = WebIQClient(api_key="your-api-key", http_client=http_client)
http_client = httpx.AsyncClient(
    base_url="https://api.microsoft.ai/v3",
    proxy="http://proxy:8080",
)
client = WebIQAsyncClient(api_key="your-api-key", http_client=http_client)

Telemetry

from webiq import WebIQClient, TelemetryEvent

def on_request(event: TelemetryEvent):
    print(f"{event.method} {event.path} → {event.status_code} ({event.elapsed_ms}ms)")

client = WebIQClient(api_key="your-api-key", telemetry_hook=on_request)

Error Handling

The SDK raises specific exception types for different error conditions. All exceptions inherit from WebIQError.

Exception Hierarchy

PermissionDeniedError and RateLimitError are both subclasses of APIStatusError, so a broader except APIStatusError clause still catches them.

Rate limits are never auto-retried

The SDK does not automatically retry 429 (rate limit) or 430 (concurrent-request limit) responses. As soon as the API returns one, the transport raises RateLimitError so your application can decide what to do — back off, queue the request, surface it to the user, etc. Generic retry settings (RetryPolicy.retry_on_status, max_retries) do not apply to rate limits.

The server reports the back-off hint in the response body as the retryAfter field — typically a duration with an s suffix (e.g. "30s", "60s"). The SDK surfaces that value unchanged on error.retry_after.

import time
from webiq import WebIQClient, RateLimitError

client = WebIQClient(api_key="your-api-key")

try:
    response = client.web.search("test")
except RateLimitError as e:
    # e.retry_after is the server-provided value from the response body
    # (e.g. "60s"). The SDK does not parse or normalize it for you.
    print(f"Rate limited. Retry after: {e.retry_after}")
    # Your retry strategy lives here — the SDK will not retry for you.

Basic Error Handling

from webiq import (
    WebIQClient,
    WebIQError,
    APIConnectionError,
    APIStatusError,
    AuthenticationError,
    PermissionDeniedError,
    RateLimitError,
)

client = WebIQClient(api_key="your-api-key")

try:
    response = client.web.search("test")
except PermissionDeniedError as e:
    # 403 — authenticated, but not allowed to call this resource
    print(f"Forbidden (HTTP {e.status_code}): {e}")
except AuthenticationError as e:
    # 401 — invalid or missing API key
    print(f"Auth failed (HTTP {e.status_code}): {e}")
except RateLimitError as e:
    # 429 or 430 — rate limit / concurrent-request limit (never auto-retried)
    print(f"Rate limited. Retry after: {e.retry_after}")
except APIStatusError as e:
    # Other HTTP errors (400, 404, 500, 503, 504, etc.)
    print(f"API error (HTTP {e.status_code}): {e}")
except APIConnectionError as e:
    # Network issues
    print(f"Connection failed: {e}")
except WebIQError as e:
    # Catch-all for any SDK error
    print(f"SDK error: {e}")

Inspecting Error Details

All APIStatusError exceptions (including PermissionDeniedError and RateLimitError) expose the full error response body. Most input-validation problems (e.g. max_results out of range, empty query) are caught client-side by Pydantic and raise pydantic.ValidationError before any request is sent; the pattern below applies when the server rejects a request (e.g. a 4xx the SDK couldn't pre-validate, or a transient 5xx). browse.fetch is a convenient way to trigger one — a missing or filtered URL surfaces as a structured error:

from webiq import WebIQClient
from webiq.errors import APIStatusError

client = WebIQClient(api_key="your-api-key")

try:
    response = client.browse.fetch("https://www.not-microsoft.com")
except APIStatusError as e:
    print(f"Status: {e.status_code}")                          # e.g. 404
    print(f"Message: {e}")                                      # e.g. "No result is found"

    # Full error body from the API response
    if isinstance(e.body, dict):
        print(f"Error code: {e.body.get('errorCode')}")        # e.g. "BrowseApiDocNotFound"
        print(f"Category: {e.body.get('errorCategory')}")      # e.g. "UserError"
        print(f"Details: {e.body.get('technicalDetails')}")    # e.g. "NotFound"
        print(f"Trace ID: {e.body.get('traceId')}")            # for debugging with support
        print(f"Retry after: {e.body.get('retryAfter')}")      # for retryable errors

License

MIT