# search_companies

Find organisations by name, with optional industry, country and type filters.

Canonical: https://chikaraintel.com/docs/mcp/tools/search_companies

Group: Companies. Read only.

## When to use

Use it to get an organisation's reference when you want the company record itself. If you only need a reference to filter events by, resolve_search_terms is quicker. The same company can come back under several name variants; pick the one with the most data.

## Parameters

- `query` (string, body, required) Company name or partial name to search for.
- `limit` (integer, body) Max results to return (default 20, max 100) Range 1 to 100. Default `20`.
- `industry` (integer, body) Filter by industry ID.
- `country` (string, body) Filter by country — a name ("United Kingdom", "England") or an ISO code (GB, US). Coverage is partial: many companies have no country recorded, so prefer a name search alone when it is enough.
- `type` (string, body) Filter by organisation type.

`country` takes a name (`United Kingdom`) or a two-letter code (`GB`). Many organisations have no country recorded, so a name search on its own is often the better query.

## Example

Prompt: "Find Halberd Industrial Group."

```json
{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "search_companies",
    "arguments": {
      "query": "Halberd",
      "limit": 5
    }
  }
}
```

Result (invented records):

```json
[
  {
    "reference": "3f2a9c1e-7b4d-4e8a-9c21-5d6e7f8a9b01",
    "name": "Halberd Industrial Group",
    "size": "Large (1,001–5,000 employees)",
    "totals": {
      "employees": 3200
    },
    "status": "active",
    "verified": true,
    "confidence": 88
  },
  {
    "reference": "3f2a9c1e-7b4d-4e8a-9c21-5d6e7f8a9b02",
    "name": "Halberd Industrial Group PLC",
    "size": "-",
    "totals": {
      "employees": 0
    },
    "status": "active",
    "verified": false,
    "confidence": 41
  }
]
```

## Errors

- `Invalid arguments for tool search_companies: …`: An argument fails the schema, such as a `limit` above 100.

## Built on

- GET /v1/organisations (https://chikaraintel.com/docs/api/reference/organisations/list-organisations.md)