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Sonar-via-OpenRouter Search Upgrade

Swap default agent web search for Perplexity Sonar Pro plus a deep-research escalation path.

AI Systemsai-systemsp4
by AgentVoltv1.0.0Published 1y ago1 install
Free to sign up · every skill included with AgentVolt Pro

Before & after

Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.

Prompt“My agent keeps hallucinating on research questions. Fix its search.”
Beforegeneric AI agent
Hallucination on research questions usually happens when the model doesn't have good information to work with. Here are some approaches:

- Make sure your agent actually has a web search tool configured
- Improve your prompts to explicitly ask for sources and citations
- Add instructions telling the model to say "I don't know" rather than guess
- Consider using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) with a curated knowledge base
- Lower the temperature setting to make outputs more deterministic
- Implement a verification step where a second call checks the claims

You might also look into search APIs that return richer results than basic ones.

Which of these would you like to explore?
Afterwith Sonar-via-OpenRouter Search Upgrade
The prompt isn't the problem. Thin search results are — the model fills
gaps because the gaps are real. Route search through Sonar instead.

TWO-TIER ROUTING
  Default          → perplexity/sonar-pro           (~$0.005/call)
  Contains trigger → perplexity/sonar-deep-research (~$0.30/call)
  Trigger phrase: "deep research" (configurable)

SETUP
1. OpenRouter key at openrouter.ai/keys
2. Set the spend cap BEFORE the first call — deep research at $0.30 and
   an agent in a retry loop is a bad combination discovered late.
   Cap: $30/mo. Alert at 80%.
3. Store as OPENROUTER_API_KEY. Not in the agent config file.

PATCH — tools.md
  Replace the default web_search entry with the sonar router so the
  routing survives a new session instead of living in one prompt.

PATCH — memory.md
  + Research routing is permanent. Use sonar-pro for factual lookups.
  + Escalate to sonar-deep-research only on the trigger phrase.
  + Never answer a factual question from parametric memory when the
  + router is available — cite the returned sources.

  Second line is what actually stops the hallucination: without it the
  model still answers from memory when it feels confident.

VERIFY — run both, confirm the split
  "What did Anthropic ship this week?"            → sonar-pro, ~$0.005
  "deep research: agent framework landscape 2026" → deep, ~$0.30
  Both should return citations. No citations = routing didn't take.

COST LOG
  Per call: timestamp, tier, tokens, cost, trigger matched y/n.
  Watch the tier split for a week. If deep-research is over 10% of
  calls, your trigger phrase is too common — make it more specific.

FALLBACK
  Brave on 429 or timeout, so a Sonar outage degrades instead of
  failing the run.

About this skill

name: agent-sonar-search-upgrade description: Swap default agent web search for Perplexity Sonar Pro plus a deep-research escalation path. Use when working on sonar-via-openrouter search upgrade.

Sonar-via-OpenRouter Search Upgrade

The default search inside most autonomous agents returns thin results, so the agent hallucinates. This skill routes normal queries through Perplexity Sonar Pro and escalates to Sonar Deep Research whenever the prompt contains an explicit trigger. It writes the OpenRouter API key with a spend cap, updates tools.md and memory.md so the routing is permanent, and gives you a per-call cost log. Use to fix weak-research answers without switching platforms.

What you get

  • OpenRouter setup steps
  • Two-tier model routing rules
  • Spend-cap configuration
  • tools.md plus memory.md patches
  • Test prompts and cost verification
  • Per-call cost log

Customize your output

  • Trigger phrase for deep research: default 'deep research', custom
  • Monthly spend cap: $10, $30, $100
  • Fallback model: Brave, Google, Bing
  • Per-project override: yes, no
  • Retention of results: 7, 30, 90 days
  • Log format: markdown, CSV

Example output

'Routed default web search to perplexity/sonar-pro. Deep-research trigger deep research routes to perplexity/sonar-deep-research. OpenRouter key set with $30/mo cap. Verified test call cost $0.02.'

Best for

Anyone whose agent already runs but returns weak research or cites nothing.

Note: High confidence. Biggest single quality lever inside an agent.

SKILL.md preview

SKILL.md
---
name: agent-sonar-search-upgrade
description: Use when an agent web search tool returns thin results and needs routing through Perplexity Sonar Pro with a deep-research escalation path.
version: 1.0.0
category: AI Systems
author: AgentVolt
license: proprietary
tags:
  - ai-systems
  - p4
---

# Sonar-via-OpenRouter Search Upgrade

Replaces a default agent's weak web search with Perplexity Sonar Pro, escalating to Sonar Deep Research on an explicit trigger, with permanent routing and cost logging.

## When to use

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