crewAIInc/crewAI · error · ValueError

query is required either in constructor or method call

Error message

query is required either in constructor or method call

What it means

Raised by BrightDataSERPTool._run when the query resolves to falsy at both the call-site and constructor level (query = query or self.query). The SERP tool then URL-encodes the query into a search URL (google/bing/yandex per get_search_url), so an empty query cannot proceed.

Source

Thrown at lib/crewai-tools/src/crewai_tools/tools/brightdata_tool/brightdata_serp.py:177

            parse_results (bool): If True, returns structured data; else raw page (default: True).
            results_count (str or int): Number of search results to fetch (default: "10").

        Returns:
            dict or str: Parsed JSON data from Bright Data if available, otherwise error message.
        """
        query = query or self.query
        search_engine = search_engine or self.search_engine
        country = country or self.country
        language = language or self.language
        search_type = search_type or self.search_type
        device_type = device_type or self.device_type
        parse_results = (
            parse_results if parse_results is not None else self.parse_results
        )
        results_count = kwargs.get("results_count", "10")

        if not query:
            raise ValueError("query is required either in constructor or method call")

        query = urllib.parse.quote(query)
        url = self.get_search_url(search_engine, query)

        params = []

        if country:
            params.append(f"gl={country}")

        if language:
            params.append(f"hl={language}")

        if results_count:
            params.append(f"num={results_count}")

        if parse_results:
            params.append("brd_json=1")

View on GitHub (pinned to 754d7323be)

Solutions

1. Pass query at call time: tool.run(query='best crm software', country='us').
2. Or set it in the constructor: BrightDataSERPTool(query='best crm software').
3. Validate agent-produced inputs are non-empty before invoking the tool.

Example fix

# before
result = tool.run(country='us')  # ValueError: query is required

# after
result = tool.run(query='best crm software', country='us')

def validate_serp_query(query: str | None) -> str:
    if not query or not query.strip():
        raise ValueError("query is required either in constructor or method call")
    return query.strip()

result = tool.run(query=validate_serp_query(query))

def has_serp_query(call_kwargs: dict, tool) -> bool:
    return bool((call_kwargs.get("query") or tool.query))

try:
    result = tool.run(country='us')
except ValueError as e:
    if "query is required" in str(e):
        result = tool.run(query=default_query(), country='us')
    else:
        raise

When it happens

Trigger: Constructing the tool without query and calling tool.run() bare; tool.run(query='') from an agent whose input template produced an empty string; passing only filters like country/search_type.

Common situations: Prompt variables interpolating to empty, agents omitting the query argument, constructor configured with everything except query.

Related errors

• dataset_type is required either in constructor or method cal
• url is required either in constructor or method call
• url is required either in constructor or method call
• Query is required
• Unable to find the dataset for {dataset_type}. Please make s

AI-assisted analysis of crewAIInc/crewAI@754d7323be (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/608eef19069f3210. Report an issue: GitHub.