crewai - 💡(How to fix) Fix Add iFlow Search tool suite to crewAI tools

Summary

I would like to propose adding an iFlow Search tool suite to lib/crewai-tools/.

The proposed suite follows the endpoint-specific pattern used by Brave Search:

iFlow Search provides search APIs for AI agents, including web search, image search, and web page fetching. A standalone CrewAI adapter already exists as iflow-search-crewai==0.1.0; this proposal is for native in-tree tools for crewai[tools] users.

Motivation

CrewAI already supports several search and research tools, including Tavily and Brave Search. iFlow Search fits the same tool category:

• web search for current information retrieval;
• image search as a differentiated capability;
• URL content extraction via web fetch;
• Python-first integration through the maintained iflow-search SDK;
• lower friction for users who prefer native crewai_tools over MCP stdio configuration.

Non-goals

• This is not a request for an AMP / Studio provider tile.
• This does not add News, Video, or Research tools because iFlow Search does not expose matching endpoints today.
• This would not require users to configure MCP.

Related work

• Complementary MCP docs PR: #5928 (stdio / MCP route — not a replacement for native BaseTool integration).
• Structural precedent: Brave Search tool suite, for example #4446.
• Dependency pattern precedent: Tavily tools + external SDK (iflow-search for iFlow).

Proposed implementation

Add a new tool suite under:

lib/crewai-tools/src/crewai_tools/tools/iflow_search_tool/

Proposed public imports:

from crewai_tools import (
    IFlowWebSearchTool,
    IFlowImageSearchTool,
    IFlowWebFetchTool,
)

Proposed configuration:

• required env var: IFLOW_API_KEY
• optional: IFLOW_BASE_URL, defaulting to https://platform.iflow.cn
• package dependency: iflow-search>=0.1.0,<0.2

The implementation would use the core iflow-search SDK directly rather than depending on the standalone iflow-search-crewai adapter.

Documentation

I can add a single suite page, similar in spirit to the Brave Search docs page:

docs/en/tools/search-research/iflowsearchtools.mdx

The page would include:

• a three-tool suite table;
• install/config instructions;
• examples for each tool;
• an Agent + Task example;
• a note that this is a native CrewAI tool integration, not an AMP provider tile.

Metadata / specs

I can include or regenerate the relevant tool.specs.json changes if maintainers prefer that in the same PR, or leave that to the existing generation workflow (.github/workflows/generate-tool-specs.yml) if that is the preferred process.

Affiliation

I maintain iFlow Search SDK integrations. Relevant links:

• iFlow API docs: https://platform.iflow.cn/docs/
• standalone CrewAI adapter: iflow-search-crewai==0.1.0
• core SDK dependency: iflow-search>=0.1.0,<0.2

Questions for maintainers

1. Would you prefer this as one suite PR, or separate PRs for tools and docs?
2. Is the Brave-style endpoint-specific suite structure acceptable for iFlow?
3. Should the CrewAI tool names be snake_case (iflow_web_search) for consistency with existing iFlow adapters, or human-readable (iFlow Web Search) for consistency with some existing CrewAI tools?
4. Should IFLOW_BASE_URL be exposed in tool metadata, or only as a constructor option?
5. Should a small helper such as create_iflow_search_tools() be included, or should the upstream PR only export the three tool classes?

cc @greysonlalonde for tools/docs ownership visibility, if this is the right area.