# choose-your-parallel-api

> Claude/Codex skill by [@parallel-web](https://omgskills.com/library/parallel-web/index.md) · 90 stars · Updated 2026-10-21

Choose the right Parallel API and configuration for cost, latency, and answer quality. Use when adding live web data to an app: current events and prices, a cited answer in a chat, grounding an agent in sources it can read in full, reading a URL or PDF, deep research reports, researching or enriching every row of a list or CRM. Use when picking among Search and Extract, Responses, and Task, or when choosing a search mode, reasoning effort, or Task processor. Also use when an integration is too slow, costs more than expected, or misses answers that are on the web.

## Install

```sh
git clone https://github.com/parallel-web/parallel-agent-skills /tmp/parallel-agent-skills && ln -s /tmp/parallel-agent-skills/skills/choose-your-parallel-api ~/.claude/skills/choose-your-parallel-api
```

## From README

Choose the right Parallel API and configuration This skill covers four Parallel APIs for adding web data to an app. Search finds pages, Extract reads them, Responses answers a question, Task fills a schema. Search and Extract are one pattern, not two choices. Search locates the pages and returns excerpts; Extract returns the full content of the ones worth reading. Most agent integrations want both. Choose once, while writing the integration — not on every request. A live classifier in the request path buys flexibility nobody asked for and charges a model round-trip for it on every call. Decide here; hard-code the result. Most disappointing results come from choosing the wrong API or configuration, not from the underlying quality: the right API at the wrong tier, or the right tier with the wrong knobs. Choose the API first, tier second, knobs third — in that order. PARALLELAPIKEY is the connection secret, server side.

## Links

- HTML page: https://omgskills.com/library/parallel-web/parallel-agent-skills/skills/choose-your-parallel-api/
- GitHub: https://github.com/parallel-web/parallel-agent-skills
- Author: [@parallel-web](https://omgskills.com/library/parallel-web/index.md)

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