Autosearch autosearch:tikhub-fallback

Decision tree for when to escalate from free native Chinese channels (bilibili / weibo / xiaohongshu / douyin / zhihu) to the paid TikHub fallback. ~$0.0036 per request; 5 platforms covered. Tells the runtime AI when the cost is worth paying vs. when the free paths are enough.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/0xmariowu/Autosearch

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/0xmariowu/Autosearch "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/autosearch/skills/meta/tikhub-fallback" ~/.claude/skills/0xmariowu-autosearch-autosearch-tikhub-fallback && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: autosearch/skills/meta/tikhub-fallback/SKILL.md

source content

TikHub Fallback Decision Tree — Advisory

Cost anchor: TikHub averages $0.0036 per request (per

docs/mcp-channels-playbook.md

measurement). A research session with 1000 TikHub calls costs about $3.60/month. Cheap per call, but accumulates fast if every query defaults to paid.

Boss rule: Free paths first; TikHub is the paid cushion, not the default.

Covered Platforms (5)

Platform	Free native skill	TikHub endpoint	Free path reliability
Xiaohongshu	`search-xiaohongshu` (requires cookie)	`xiaohongshu/web/search_notes`	Low — reliably gated; TikHub is usually required
Weibo	`search-weibo` (free API)	`web/fetch_search`	Medium — free works but TikHub upstream is flaky
Douyin	`search-douyin` (free native)	TikHub + `mcporter` -routed free MCP	Medium — free works, TikHub more complete
Zhihu	`search-zhihu` (free native)	TikHub endpoint	Low — Zhihu blocks aggressive scraping
Twitter / X	`search-twitter-exa`	`search-twitter-xreach` (XReach)	Medium — Exa covers public, XReach covers deeper signal

Other hard Chinese platforms not covered by TikHub (do not escalate, degrade gracefully):

WeChat Mini Programs
Private Xiaohongshu accounts
Facebook / Instagram private pages
Any account-gated content

Decision Tree

Apply per query, not per session:

1. Try the free native channel skill first.
   ├─ Returns usable results? → DONE (do not escalate).
   └─ Blocked / empty / flaky? → step 2.

2. If `TIKHUB_API_KEY` is not set in env:
   ├─ Try the mcporter free MCP if applicable (Weibo, Douyin).
   └─ Otherwise report to user: "no free path, no TikHub key — gracefully degraded."

3. If `TIKHUB_API_KEY` is set AND the platform is one of the 5 covered:
   ├─ If query is research-critical (user explicitly asked or Best-tier step) → escalate to TikHub.
   ├─ If query is exploratory / fan-out → skip TikHub, try a different channel instead.
   └─ After 3 failed TikHub requests on the same session / same query shape → stop, do not retry a 4th time (rate-limit or upstream regression signal).

4. Bundle call patterns to reduce cost:
   ├─ Dedupe queries across channels before calling TikHub.
   └─ Prefer single calls that return rich payloads over multiple narrow calls.

Per-Platform Notes

Xiaohongshu: Free scraping needs cookie that expires; TikHub is usually the primary practical path.
Weibo: Free path works for recent hot topics; TikHub upstream has returned
```
ok=1 but cards empty
```
occasionally — ~20% flake. Pair with
```
search-wechat
```
for long-form verification.
Douyin: Free
```
mcporter
```
MCP usable if user has cookie configured; TikHub as paid fallback when MCP 403s.
Zhihu: Free path rate-limits after ~30 queries/session. Escalate to TikHub on rate-limit.
Twitter/X: Prefer
```
search-twitter-exa
```
(free, Exa semantic site: query); only reach
```
search-twitter-xreach
```
(XReach paid) when a fresh timeline read is mandatory.

What This Skill Is Not

Not a wrapper around the TikHub client (that's
```
autosearch/lib/tikhub_client.py
```
).
Not a replacement for the channel skill's own
```
fallback_chain
```
. The channel skills carry
```
fallback_chain: [via_tikhub, api_search, api_video_detail]
```
in frontmatter — that is the per-channel sequence. This skill is the meta policy deciding whether the runtime AI should even reach into the fallback chain for the TikHub hop.

Boss Rules

Do not default to TikHub. Free paths first, always.
Do not flip global policy from a single failure. If a free channel failed once, retry with a different query shape before escalating. Only a repeated pattern (3+ failures on same query shape) or a known upstream block (Xiaohongshu) justifies escalating immediately.
Budget-aware runtime AI should warn the user when TikHub spend crosses a session threshold (~$1 equivalent = ~280 requests).

Related Skills

```
autosearch:router
```
— picks the channel group first.
```
autosearch:model-routing
```
— picks model tier (orthogonal to cost).
```
mcporter
```
— the free-MCP fallback path (Weibo / Douyin alternatives without TikHub).
Individual channel SKILL.md frontmatters already list
```
via_tikhub
```
in their
```
fallback_chain
```
.

Quality Bar

Evidence items have non-empty title and url.
No crash on empty or malformed API response.
Source channel field matches the channel name.