ResponseFunctionWebSearch doesn't match returned payload

[davidgilbertson]

Confirm this is an issue with the Python library and not an underlying OpenAI API

• This is an issue with the Python library

Describe the bug

The ResponseFunctionWebSearch suggests that action can't be None but I get a response where it is (via the agents SDK, but the type is defined in this package)

In text form, the payload of interest I get looks like this:

ResponseFunctionWebSearch(
    id='ws_...264', 
    action=None, 
    status='completed', 
    type='web_search_call'
)

There were four web searches, the first two had an action, the second two didn't.

To Reproduce

I have code like this parsing a response that did a web search:

search_count = sum(
    1
    for raw_response in response.raw_responses
    for item in raw_response.output
    if item.type == "web_search_call" and item.action.type == "search"
)

Which should have been a safe assumption based on the types, but raises an error.

Code snippets

OS

Windows 11

Python version

3.14

Library version

2.32

[anishesg]

PR up at #3181.

[Xsidz]

Working on this in PR #3626.

[marcuswood-oai]

Thanks for sharing the example—it makes the mismatch clear. The generated type promises an action, but the None value you observed makes accessing .type fail. As a workaround, check item.action is not None before accessing it; that avoids this attribute error while the contract is corrected.

We’re closing this report to keep the work together in openai/openai-openapi#572; please follow that issue for progress. It preserves your example and tracks the distinction between an omitted action and explicit JSON null, which the Python representation alone cannot establish.