huggingface/smolagents · warning · Exception

No results found for query: '{query}' with filtering on year

Error message

No results found for query: '{query}' with filtering on year={filter_year}. Use a less restrictive query or do not filter on year.

What it means

Raised by the search tool's forward when the API response JSON lacks the organic-results key (e.g. 'organic' for Serper, 'organic_results' for SerpAPI) AND a filter_year was applied. It indicates the query (possibly with the year filter appended) returned no organic results.

Source

Thrown at src/smolagents/default_tools.py:219

        else:
            params = {
                "q": query,
                "api_key": self.api_key,
            }
            base_url = "https://google.serper.dev/search"
        if filter_year is not None:
            params["tbs"] = f"cdr:1,cd_min:01/01/{filter_year},cd_max:12/31/{filter_year}"

        response = requests.get(base_url, params=params)

        if response.status_code == 200:
            results = response.json()
        else:
            raise ValueError(response.json())

        if self.organic_key not in results.keys():
            if filter_year is not None:
                raise Exception(
                    f"No results found for query: '{query}' with filtering on year={filter_year}. Use a less restrictive query or do not filter on year."
                )
            else:
                raise Exception(f"No results found for query: '{query}'. Use a less restrictive query.")
        if len(results[self.organic_key]) == 0:
            year_filter_message = f" with filter year={filter_year}" if filter_year is not None else ""
            return f"No results found for '{query}'{year_filter_message}. Try with a more general query, or remove the year filter."

        web_snippets = []
        if self.organic_key in results:
            for idx, page in enumerate(results[self.organic_key]):
                date_published = ""
                if "date" in page:
                    date_published = "\nDate published: " + page["date"]

                source = ""
                if "source" in page:
                    source = "\nSource: " + page["source"]

View on GitHub (pinned to 30bb116109)

Solutions

Retry without filter_year.
Broaden the query (fewer quoted terms, remove site: filters).
Catch the exception and let the agent decide to drop the year filter.

Example fix

# before
tool.run('quantum computing breakthroughs', filter_year=1995)
# after
tool.run('quantum computing breakthroughs', filter_year=2024)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

null

Try / catch

try:
    res = tool.run(q, filter_year=y)
except Exception:
    res = tool.run(q)  # drop year filter and retry

Prevention

Default to no filter_year and only add it when results are too broad.
Instruct agents that empty year-filtered results mean: retry without the filter.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling run(query, filter_year=2015) where the provider response has no organic key — i.e. zero organic hits for the year-filtered query (e.g. 'site:nonexistent.com latest news' with filter_year).

Common situations: Agents filtering by year on niche queries, year filters that exclude all results for young topics, or API responses containing only ads/knowledge panels with no organic block.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of huggingface/smolagents@30bb116109 (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cc84817ca4753967. Report an issue: GitHub.