> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.valyu.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Design Philosophy

> Understanding Valyu's architecture and intended use cases

Knowledge work is being rebuilt around AI agents, and every agent needs reliable access to the knowledge that work depends on. As tasks like equity research and diligence decompose into chains of retrieval, each step needs primary-source information in the right shape - not just web links. Valyu is search engineered for that, from first principles.

Agent note: Valyu's full docs index is at [/llms.txt](https://docs.valyu.ai/llms.txt) (full text at /llms-full.txt); append `.md` to any page URL for Markdown; hosted docs MCP at [https://docs.valyu.ai/mcp](https://docs.valyu.ai/mcp); integration reference at [/AGENTS.md](https://docs.valyu.ai/AGENTS.md).

## Design principles

**Built for AI.** Valyu returns structured JSON with citations and metadata, retrieved by semantic embeddings that understand context rather than keywords. Traditional search returns links for humans to click; Valyu returns data an LLM can use directly, reducing hallucinations.

**One API, many sources.** A single interface spans the real-time web, academic papers, financial data, and proprietary datasets. You get one retrieval layer instead of integrating a dozen APIs.

**Transparent, controllable cost.** Pay-per-use CPM pricing with `max_price` caps and relevance thresholds per query. No contracts, no lock-in - stay pay-as-you-go or add a [plan](/pricing) for premium sources at a lower cost per credit.

## What Valyu is good at

* **RAG** - grounding LLM responses with authoritative, citable sources
* **AI research assistants** - literature reviews, cross-referencing, recent research
* **Knowledge-heavy chatbots** - education and professional services (legal, medical, financial)
* **Real-time information** - news, market data, time-sensitive decisions
* **Specialised search** - academic, financial, and technical domains

## What Valyu isn't for

Direct user-facing search (without an LLM), social-media monitoring, e-commerce and product comparisons, local search, and creative-content generation.

<Tip>
  Don't want to build the agent loop yourself? **[DeepResearch](/guides/deepresearch)** is a cost-effective autonomous agent built on the Valyu search engine. It plans, searches, verifies, and writes cited reports from a single API call.
</Tip>

## Get started

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Quickstart" icon="code" href="/quickstart">
    Get searching in minutes
  </Card>

  <Card title="Data coverage" icon="database" href="/concepts/data-coverage">
    See every available source
  </Card>

  <Card title="Prompting Guide" icon="lightbulb" href="/search/prompting">
    Write better queries
  </Card>
</CardGroup>