> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://arka-agent-mintlify-f21cea86.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Chat, web search, and factual Q&A skills

> Answer questions through Arka's chat engine with web search, deep-scrape RAG, math, weather, nearby-place lookup, and location-aware session memory.

Arka's chat engine handles factual questions, deep web research, math, weather, and location-aware search.

## Core skills

| Skill | Example |
| - | - |
| `web_answer` | `arka ask who won IPL 2025` |
| `deep_web_answer` | `deep_web_answer latest AI regulation news` |
| `calc` | `arka calc integrate sin(x) dx` |
| `hyperlocal_weather` | `arka weather near me` |
| `set_location` | `set_location Mumbai` |
| `nearby_places` | `nearby_places Kolkata` |
| `error_helper` | `error_helper <traceback>` |
| `arka chat_reset` | Clear session + location context |

## Forced deep search

Prefix with `/` to force deep web search:

```bash theme={null}
arka "/who won IPL 2025"
```

## Deep search queue

Run background deep searches:

```bash theme={null}
arka "deep_queue add "who won the last IPL final""
arka "deep_queue list"
arka "deep_queue run"
arka "deep_queue results"
```

## Session memory

Answers are tagged `[FROM SEARCH]` or `[FROM MEMORY]` (stripped for TTS). Chat sessions persist context across follow-up questions within a session.

```bash theme={null}
arka facing hair loss          # routes to web_answer with session
arka chat_reset                     # clear context
```

## Location grounding

Set your location for hyperlocal results:

```bash theme={null}
arka "set_location Mumbai"
arka "hyperlocal_weather"
arka "nearby_places"
arka map_download Kolkata           # cache city map to ~/.cache/arka/maps/
```

## Web search tuning

DuckDuckGo lookups honor two env vars. If every retry times out or errors, chat logs the failure and answers from model knowledge instead of stalling the reply.

| Var | Default | Notes |
| - | - | - |
| `DDGS_TIMEOUT` | `20` | Per-call timeout in seconds. Minimum `5`. |
| `DDGS_RETRIES` | `2` | Attempts before falling back. Minimum `1`. |

Raise both on slow or flaky networks:

```env theme={null}
DDGS_TIMEOUT=30
DDGS_RETRIES=3
```

## Install chat extras

```bash theme={null}
pip install "arka-agent[chat]"
```

Requires: Agno, ddgs, trafilatura, sympy, geopy.

<Note>
  Web queries pass through security checks before search. See [Security](/concepts/security).
</Note>


## Related topics

- [Skills catalog: 70+ built-in Arka commands](/guides/skills.md)
- [Arka — AI terminal agent documentation](/index.md)
- [AI agent guide — use Arka over MCP](/guides/ai-agents.md)
- [Personalize your Arka experience](/guides/personalize.md)
- [Quickstart: install Arka and run your first command](/quickstart.md)


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