[Studio 0.1.803-beta] web_search can be called with empty arguments and returns "No query provided"

[chevalroyal]

Summary

In Unsloth Studio/Desktop 0.1.803-beta, the built-in web_search tool can be emitted with an empty argument object ({}). When this happens, the tool returns:

No query provided.

This can break or stall an agent/search turn even though the user's request clearly contains something to search for.

Why this happens

The current WEB_SEARCH_TOOL schema allows both search-by-query and fetch-by-URL, but declares no required arguments:

"properties": {
    "query": {...},
    "url": {...},
},
"required": [],

Then the execution path calls:

_web_search(
    arguments.get("query", ""),
    url = arguments.get("url"),
    ...
)

So a model-generated tool call like:

{}

is schema-valid and becomes an empty query.

Reproduction

1. Run Unsloth Desktop/Studio 0.1.803-beta.
2. Load a local GGUF model with Search/tools enabled.
3. Ask a question that causes the model to use web_search.
4. On some tool calls, the model emits web_search with empty arguments.
5. Studio executes it and returns:

No query provided.

Expected behavior

web_search should never execute with neither a non-empty query nor a non-empty url.

If the model emits an invalid empty call, Studio should return a model-visible recoverable error that explicitly asks it to retry with a query, rather than passing an empty string into the search backend.

Suggested fix

Because web_search supports two modes (query search OR url fetch), simply making query required would break URL fetches. A safer fix would be:

1. Express the schema as query OR url (for example with anyOf / oneOf, if the active tool-calling stack supports it), and/or strengthen the tool description:

Provide either a non-empty `query` to search the web or a non-empty `url` to fetch a page. Never call web_search with empty arguments.

2. Add an execution-time guard before _web_search(...):

query = str(arguments.get("query", "") or "").strip()
url = str(arguments.get("url", "") or "").strip()

if not query and not url:
    return (
        "Error: web_search requires a non-empty 'query' or 'url'. "
        "Retry web_search with a query based on the user's request."
    )

3. Optionally heal common argument aliases from local models, e.g. q, search_query, search, or text -> query.

4. Add regressions for {}, whitespace-only query/url, valid query mode, and valid URL mode.

Why this matters

This is especially visible in agentic use because one malformed search call can interrupt an otherwise valid multi-step answer. 0.1.803-beta already improved tool exception propagation/recovery, so validating web_search arguments at the tool boundary would fit that recovery model well.

I searched existing issues for "No query provided", "empty query", and web_search and did not find an existing issue specifically covering this empty-argument schema path.

[Souravrajvi0]

Opened a PR for this: #9716

Confirmed the repro on the backend web_search with {} (and whitespace-only query/url) was schema-valid and landed in _web_search as an empty query, which returned No query provided.

The fix guards that path in execute_tool / _web_search so we don’t hit the search backend, returns a recoverable error asking the model to retry with a query, and heals common aliases (q, search_query, etc.). URL-only fetch is unchanged