diff --git a/SKILL.md b/SKILL.md
index df02e2a..305e4d6 100644
--- a/SKILL.md
+++ b/SKILL.md
@@ -50,66 +50,64 @@ Common patterns:
 
 ## Setup Check
 
-Verify API key configuration exists:
+The skill works in three modes based on available API keys:
 
-```bash
-if [ ! -f ~/.config/last30days/.env ]; then
-  echo "SETUP_NEEDED"
-else
-  echo "CONFIGURED"
-fi
-```
+1. **Full Mode** (both keys): Reddit + X + WebSearch - best results with engagement metrics
+2. **Partial Mode** (one key): Reddit-only or X-only + WebSearch
+3. **Web-Only Mode** (no keys): WebSearch only - still useful, but no engagement metrics
 
-### If SETUP_NEEDED
+**API keys are OPTIONAL.** The skill will work without them using WebSearch fallback.
 
-Run NUX flow to configure API keys. Use AskUserQuestion to collect:
+### First-Time Setup (Optional but Recommended)
 
-1. **OpenAI API Key** (optional but recommended for Reddit research)
-2. **xAI API Key** (optional but recommended for X research)
-
-Then create the config:
+If the user wants to add API keys for better results:
 
 ```bash
 mkdir -p ~/.config/last30days
 cat > ~/.config/last30days/.env << 'ENVEOF'
 # last30days API Configuration
-# At least one key is required
+# Both keys are optional - skill works with WebSearch fallback
 
+# For Reddit research (uses OpenAI's web_search tool)
 OPENAI_API_KEY=
+
+# For X/Twitter research (uses xAI's x_search tool)
 XAI_API_KEY=
 ENVEOF
 
 chmod 600 ~/.config/last30days/.env
 echo "Config created at ~/.config/last30days/.env"
-echo "Please edit it to add your API keys, then run the skill again."
+echo "Edit to add your API keys for enhanced research."
 ```
 
-**STOP HERE if setup was needed.**
+**DO NOT stop if no keys are configured.** Proceed with web-only mode.
 
 ---
 
 ## Research Execution
 
-**IMPORTANT: Run Reddit/X script IN BACKGROUND first, then WebSearch.** This way both run in parallel.
+**IMPORTANT: The script handles API key detection automatically.** Run it and check the output to determine mode.
 
-**Step 1: Display the research banner immediately:**
-```
-🔍 Researching "{TOPIC}" across the last 30 days...
-
-🚀 Deploying research agents in parallel...
-├─ 🟠 Reddit Agent: Scanning subreddits for gold...
-├─ 🔵 X Agent: Catching the latest takes...
-├─ 🌐 Web Agent: Crawling blogs, docs & news...
-└─ ⚖️ Judge Agent: Standing by to synthesize...
-```
-
-**Step 2: Start Reddit/X script in background**
+**Step 1: Run the research script**
 ```bash
 python3 ~/.claude/skills/last30days/scripts/last30days.py "$ARGUMENTS" --emit=compact 2>&1
 ```
-Use `run_in_background: true` so it starts immediately and runs while we do WebSearch.
 
-**Step 2: While script runs, do WebSearch**
+The script will automatically:
+- Detect available API keys
+- Show a promo banner if keys are missing (this is intentional marketing)
+- Run Reddit/X searches if keys exist
+- Signal if WebSearch is needed
+
+**Step 2: Check the output mode**
+
+The script output will indicate the mode:
+- **"Mode: both"** or **"Mode: reddit-only"** or **"Mode: x-only"**: Script found results, WebSearch is supplementary
+- **"Mode: web-only"**: No API keys, Claude must do ALL research via WebSearch
+
+**Step 3: Do WebSearch**
+
+For **ALL modes**, do WebSearch to supplement (or provide all data in web-only mode).
 
 Choose search queries based on QUERY_TYPE:
 
@@ -240,6 +238,8 @@ KEY PATTERNS I'll use:
 ```
 
 **THEN - Stats (right before invitation):**
+
+For **full/partial mode** (has API keys):
 ```
 ---
 ✅ All agents reported back!
@@ -249,6 +249,18 @@ KEY PATTERNS I'll use:
 └─ Top voices: r/{sub1}, r/{sub2} │ @{handle1}, @{handle2} │ {web_author} on {site}
 ```
 
+For **web-only mode** (no API keys):
+```
+---
+✅ Research complete!
+├─ 🌐 Web: {n} pages │ {domains}
+└─ Top sources: {author1} on {site1}, {author2} on {site2}
+
+💡 Want engagement metrics? Add API keys to ~/.config/last30days/.env
+   - OPENAI_API_KEY → Reddit (real upvotes & comments)
+   - XAI_API_KEY → X/Twitter (real likes & reposts)
+```
+
 **LAST - Invitation:**
 ```
 ---
@@ -358,6 +370,7 @@ Only do new research if the user explicitly asks about a DIFFERENT topic.
 
 After delivering a prompt, end with:
 
+For **full/partial mode**:
 ```
 ---
 📚 Expert in: {TOPIC} for {TARGET_TOOL}
@@ -365,3 +378,14 @@ After delivering a prompt, end with:
 
 Want another prompt? Just tell me what you're creating next.
 ```
+
+For **web-only mode**:
+```
+---
+📚 Expert in: {TOPIC} for {TARGET_TOOL}
+📊 Based on: {n} web pages from {domains}
+
+Want another prompt? Just tell me what you're creating next.
+
+💡 Unlock Reddit & X data: Add API keys to ~/.config/last30days/.env
+```
diff --git a/scripts/last30days.py b/scripts/last30days.py
index 0a6215d..a979e05 100644
--- a/scripts/last30days.py
+++ b/scripts/last30days.py
@@ -79,9 +79,16 @@ def run_research(
     reddit_error = None
     x_error = None
 
-    # Check if WebSearch is needed
+    # Check if WebSearch is needed (always needed in web-only mode)
     web_needed = sources in ("all", "web", "reddit-web", "x-web")
 
+    # Web-only mode: no API calls needed, Claude handles everything
+    if sources == "web":
+        if progress:
+            progress.start_web_only()
+            progress.end_web_only()
+        return reddit_items, x_items, True, raw_openai, raw_xai, raw_reddit_enriched, reddit_error, x_error
+
     # Reddit search via OpenAI
     if sources in ("both", "reddit", "all", "reddit-web"):
         if progress:
@@ -263,9 +270,16 @@ def main():
     # Get date range
     from_date, to_date = dates.get_date_range(30)
 
+    # Check what keys are missing for promo messaging
+    missing_keys = env.get_missing_keys(config)
+
     # Initialize progress display
     progress = ui.ProgressDisplay(args.topic, show_banner=True)
 
+    # Show promo for missing keys BEFORE research
+    if missing_keys != 'none':
+        progress.show_promo(missing_keys)
+
     # Select models
     if args.mock:
         # Use mock models
@@ -361,10 +375,13 @@ def main():
     render.write_outputs(report, raw_openai, raw_xai, raw_reddit_enriched)
 
     # Show completion
-    progress.show_complete(len(deduped_reddit), len(deduped_x))
+    if sources == "web":
+        progress.show_web_only_complete()
+    else:
+        progress.show_complete(len(deduped_reddit), len(deduped_x))
 
     # Output result
-    output_result(report, args.emit, web_needed, args.topic, from_date, to_date)
+    output_result(report, args.emit, web_needed, args.topic, from_date, to_date, missing_keys)
 
 
 def output_result(
@@ -374,10 +391,11 @@ def output_result(
     topic: str = "",
     from_date: str = "",
     to_date: str = "",
+    missing_keys: str = "none",
 ):
     """Output the result based on emit mode."""
     if emit_mode == "compact":
-        print(render.render_compact(report))
+        print(render.render_compact(report, missing_keys=missing_keys))
     elif emit_mode == "json":
         print(json.dumps(report.to_dict(), indent=2))
     elif emit_mode == "md":
diff --git a/scripts/lib/env.py b/scripts/lib/env.py
index 4e84a2a..810e025 100644
--- a/scripts/lib/env.py
+++ b/scripts/lib/env.py
@@ -72,6 +72,24 @@ def get_available_sources(config: Dict[str, Any]) -> str:
         return 'web'  # Fallback: WebSearch only (no API keys needed)
 
 
+def get_missing_keys(config: Dict[str, Any]) -> str:
+    """Determine which API keys are missing.
+
+    Returns: 'both', 'reddit', 'x', or 'none'
+    """
+    has_openai = bool(config.get('OPENAI_API_KEY'))
+    has_xai = bool(config.get('XAI_API_KEY'))
+
+    if has_openai and has_xai:
+        return 'none'
+    elif has_openai:
+        return 'x'  # Missing xAI key
+    elif has_xai:
+        return 'reddit'  # Missing OpenAI key
+    else:
+        return 'both'  # Missing both keys
+
+
 def validate_sources(requested: str, available: str, include_web: bool = False) -> tuple[str, Optional[str]]:
     """Validate requested sources against available keys.
 
diff --git a/scripts/lib/render.py b/scripts/lib/render.py
index c40c66f..611e199 100644
--- a/scripts/lib/render.py
+++ b/scripts/lib/render.py
@@ -14,12 +14,13 @@ def ensure_output_dir():
     OUTPUT_DIR.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
 
 
-def render_compact(report: schema.Report, limit: int = 15) -> str:
+def render_compact(report: schema.Report, limit: int = 15, missing_keys: str = "none") -> str:
     """Render compact output for Claude to synthesize.
 
     Args:
         report: Report data
         limit: Max items per source
+        missing_keys: 'both', 'reddit', 'x', or 'none'
 
     Returns:
         Compact markdown string
@@ -30,6 +31,18 @@ def render_compact(report: schema.Report, limit: int = 15) -> str:
     lines.append(f"## Research Results: {report.topic}")
     lines.append("")
 
+    # Web-only mode banner (when no API keys)
+    if report.mode == "web-only":
+        lines.append("**🌐 WEB SEARCH MODE** - Claude will search blogs, docs & news")
+        lines.append("")
+        lines.append("---")
+        lines.append("**⚡ Want better results?** Add API keys to unlock Reddit & X data:")
+        lines.append("- `OPENAI_API_KEY` → Reddit threads with real upvotes & comments")
+        lines.append("- `XAI_API_KEY` → X posts with real likes & reposts")
+        lines.append("- Edit `~/.config/last30days/.env` to add keys")
+        lines.append("---")
+        lines.append("")
+
     # Cache indicator
     if report.from_cache:
         age_str = f"{report.cache_age_hours:.1f}h old" if report.cache_age_hours else "cached"
@@ -44,12 +57,12 @@ def render_compact(report: schema.Report, limit: int = 15) -> str:
         lines.append(f"**xAI Model:** {report.xai_model_used}")
     lines.append("")
 
-    # Coverage note
-    if report.mode == "reddit-only":
-        lines.append("*Tip: Add xAI key for X coverage and better triangulation.*")
+    # Coverage note for partial coverage
+    if report.mode == "reddit-only" and missing_keys == "x":
+        lines.append("*💡 Tip: Add XAI_API_KEY for X/Twitter data and better triangulation.*")
         lines.append("")
-    elif report.mode == "x-only":
-        lines.append("*Tip: Add OpenAI key for Reddit coverage and better triangulation.*")
+    elif report.mode == "x-only" and missing_keys == "reddit":
+        lines.append("*💡 Tip: Add OPENAI_API_KEY for Reddit data and better triangulation.*")
         lines.append("")
 
     # Reddit items
diff --git a/scripts/lib/ui.py b/scripts/lib/ui.py
index 205e8af..51105cd 100644
--- a/scripts/lib/ui.py
+++ b/scripts/lib/ui.py
@@ -72,6 +72,61 @@ PROCESSING_MESSAGES = [
     "Organizing findings...",
 ]
 
+WEB_ONLY_MESSAGES = [
+    "Searching the web...",
+    "Finding blogs and docs...",
+    "Crawling news sites...",
+    "Discovering tutorials...",
+]
+
+# Promo message for users without API keys
+PROMO_MESSAGE = f"""
+{Colors.YELLOW}{Colors.BOLD}━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━{Colors.RESET}
+{Colors.YELLOW}⚡ UNLOCK THE FULL POWER OF /last30days{Colors.RESET}
+
+{Colors.DIM}Right now you're using web search only. Add API keys to unlock:{Colors.RESET}
+
+  {Colors.YELLOW}🟠 Reddit{Colors.RESET} - Real upvotes, comments, and community insights
+     └─ Add OPENAI_API_KEY (uses OpenAI's web_search for Reddit)
+
+  {Colors.CYAN}🔵 X (Twitter){Colors.RESET} - Real-time posts, likes, reposts from creators
+     └─ Add XAI_API_KEY (uses xAI's live X search)
+
+{Colors.DIM}Setup:{Colors.RESET} Edit {Colors.BOLD}~/.config/last30days/.env{Colors.RESET}
+{Colors.YELLOW}{Colors.BOLD}━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━{Colors.RESET}
+"""
+
+PROMO_MESSAGE_PLAIN = """
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+⚡ UNLOCK THE FULL POWER OF /last30days
+
+Right now you're using web search only. Add API keys to unlock:
+
+  🟠 Reddit - Real upvotes, comments, and community insights
+     └─ Add OPENAI_API_KEY (uses OpenAI's web_search for Reddit)
+
+  🔵 X (Twitter) - Real-time posts, likes, reposts from creators
+     └─ Add XAI_API_KEY (uses xAI's live X search)
+
+Setup: Edit ~/.config/last30days/.env
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+"""
+
+# Shorter promo for single missing key
+PROMO_SINGLE_KEY = {
+    "reddit": f"""
+{Colors.DIM}💡 Tip: Add {Colors.YELLOW}OPENAI_API_KEY{Colors.RESET}{Colors.DIM} to ~/.config/last30days/.env for Reddit data with real engagement metrics!{Colors.RESET}
+""",
+    "x": f"""
+{Colors.DIM}💡 Tip: Add {Colors.CYAN}XAI_API_KEY{Colors.RESET}{Colors.DIM} to ~/.config/last30days/.env for X/Twitter data with real likes & reposts!{Colors.RESET}
+""",
+}
+
+PROMO_SINGLE_KEY_PLAIN = {
+    "reddit": "\n💡 Tip: Add OPENAI_API_KEY to ~/.config/last30days/.env for Reddit data with real engagement metrics!\n",
+    "x": "\n💡 Tip: Add XAI_API_KEY to ~/.config/last30days/.env for X/Twitter data with real likes & reposts!\n",
+}
+
 # Spinner frames
 SPINNER_FRAMES = ['⠋', '⠙', '⠹', '⠸', '⠼', '⠴', '⠦', '⠧', '⠇', '⠏']
 DOTS_FRAMES = ['   ', '.  ', '.. ', '...']
@@ -214,6 +269,46 @@ class ProgressDisplay:
         sys.stderr.write(f"{Colors.RED}✗ Error:{Colors.RESET} {message}\n")
         sys.stderr.flush()
 
+    def start_web_only(self):
+        """Show web-only mode indicator."""
+        msg = random.choice(WEB_ONLY_MESSAGES)
+        self.spinner = Spinner(f"{Colors.GREEN}Web{Colors.RESET} {msg}", Colors.GREEN)
+        self.spinner.start()
+
+    def end_web_only(self):
+        """End web-only spinner."""
+        if self.spinner:
+            self.spinner.stop(f"{Colors.GREEN}Web{Colors.RESET} Claude will search the web")
+
+    def show_web_only_complete(self):
+        """Show completion for web-only mode."""
+        elapsed = time.time() - self.start_time
+        if IS_TTY:
+            sys.stderr.write(f"\n{Colors.GREEN}{Colors.BOLD}✓ Ready for web search{Colors.RESET} ")
+            sys.stderr.write(f"{Colors.DIM}({elapsed:.1f}s){Colors.RESET}\n")
+            sys.stderr.write(f"  {Colors.GREEN}Web:{Colors.RESET} Claude will search blogs, docs & news\n\n")
+        else:
+            sys.stderr.write(f"✓ Ready for web search ({elapsed:.1f}s)\n")
+        sys.stderr.flush()
+
+    def show_promo(self, missing: str = "both"):
+        """Show promotional message for missing API keys.
+
+        Args:
+            missing: 'both', 'reddit', or 'x' - which keys are missing
+        """
+        if missing == "both":
+            if IS_TTY:
+                sys.stderr.write(PROMO_MESSAGE)
+            else:
+                sys.stderr.write(PROMO_MESSAGE_PLAIN)
+        elif missing in PROMO_SINGLE_KEY:
+            if IS_TTY:
+                sys.stderr.write(PROMO_SINGLE_KEY[missing])
+            else:
+                sys.stderr.write(PROMO_SINGLE_KEY_PLAIN[missing])
+        sys.stderr.flush()
+
 
 def print_phase(phase: str, message: str):
     """Print a phase message."""