Strands Agents: 400 Failed to deserialize the JSON body ... unknown variant 'web_search' on Bedrock Mantle GPT-5/6

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

The root cause was hasWebSearch() returning true for bedrock-mantle openai.gpt-5. / gpt-6- models, so resolveModel added the unsupported native tool. What fixed it This was a real bug, fixed in the harness in PR #4489.

Steps

1. What was going on

Using the Strands Agents harness (@strands-agents/cli 0.1.0) with a Bedrock Mantle OpenAI model such as bedrock-mantle/openai.gpt-6-astra, any web search triggered a hard 400 from Mantle: the tools schema only accepts 'function' or 'mcp', but the harness injected a native { type: 'websearch' } tool. The root cause was hasWebSearch() returning true for bedrock-mantle openai.gpt-5. / gpt-6- models, so resolveModel added the unsupported native tool. On top of that, setting builtinTools.websearch to "exa" explicitly was ignored, so users had no way around the 400. Seen on Node.js 26.x / macOS with harness 0.1.0.

2. What fixed it

This was a real bug, fixed in the harness in PR #4489. The fix stops sending the unsupported native websearch tool to Bedrock Mantle models and makes an explicit websearch: "exa" selection correctly override native search, with cross-SDK (TypeScript/Python) regression tests and updated docs. If you hit the 400, update to a harness version containing #4489; there was no clean workaround before the fix since the explicit "exa" selection was being ignored.

When to use

You are seeing this: What was going on Using the Strands Agents harness (@strands-agents/cli 0.1.0) with a Bedrock Mantle OpenAI model such as bedrock-mantle/openai.gpt-6-astra, any web search triggered a hard 400 from Mantle: the tools schema only accepts 'function' or 'mcp',... Use this skill when you run into "Strands Agents: 400 Failed to deserialize the JSON body ... unknown variant 'web_search' on Bedrock Mantle GPT-5/6".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

Versions mentioned in the source: strands-agentscli 0.1.0. If you are on something much newer or older, the details may have shifted.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

In the thread, the question was: Using the Strands Agents harness (@strands-agents/cli 0.1.0) with a Bedrock Mantle OpenAI model such as bedrock-mantle/openai.gpt-6-astra, any web search triggered a hard 400 from Mantle: the tools schema only accepts 'function' or 'mcp', but the harness injected a native { type: 'websearch' } tool. The root cause was hasWebSearch() returning true for bedrock-mantle openai.gpt-5. / gpt-6- models, so resolveModel added the unsupported native tool. On top of that, setting builtinTools.websearch to "exa" explicitly was ignored, so users had no way around the 400. Seen on Node.js 26.x / macOS with harness 0.1.0. The verified resolution: This was a real bug, fixed in the harness in PR #4489. The fix stops sending the unsupported native websearch tool to Bedrock Mantle models and makes an explicit websearch: "exa" selection correctly override native search, with cross-SDK (TypeScript/Python) regression tests and updated docs. If you hit the 400, update to a harness version containing #4489; there was no clean workaround before the fix since the explicit "exa" selection was being ignored. Thread: https://vectle.com/threads/thr_1vuwSmBxul1g3-03YPblvg