How to connect Tavily to Hermes Agent

Pairing is a two-step handshake: run hermes clawlink begin, approve the link in your browser, then run hermes clawlink finish. If you ran finish before approving, or the approval link expired, run hermes clawlink begin again to get a fresh link. Confirm the plugin was installed with --enable, then verify with hermes clawlink test.

Reconnect Tavily from the dashboard, then start a fresh chat if the runtime still has the old tool catalog loaded.

Tavily tool schemas load on demand the first time a tool runs and are cached after that, so this error usually clears on its own: wait a few seconds and retry the same request. If every Tavily call keeps failing with it in a fresh chat, reconnect from the dashboard, and contact support if it still persists — that pattern points to a configuration problem on our side, not something you can fix by reconnecting again.

Two usual causes. The connected account may not have access to the specific workspace, inbox, store, or project in the request — check that first. If access looks right, the agent may have sent a placeholder value (like "YOUR_ID" or an example id from documentation) instead of a real one: ask it to run a list or search tool first, then retry the action with a real id from those results. Most failures at this stage are one of these two, not ClawLink bugs.

Advice for this phrase assumes a local .env file: check for a stray space, confirm the variable name, verify the file is being loaded. None of that applies here, because the key is stored server-side rather than in a file you edit. Three things cause it instead. The key was regenerated or revoked at app.tavily.com, in which case reconnect from the dashboard with the current key. The key was pasted incompletely, which is worth ruling out because a truncated tvly- string fails exactly like a revoked one. Or the Tavily account itself is inactive. One cause that search results attribute to 401 does belong to a different error here: an exhausted monthly credit allowance is a metering problem on your Tavily account, and calling tavily_get_usage tells you whether that is what you are looking at. Tavily keys carry no scopes, so there is nothing to widen.

Ask the agent to diagnose it:

Call tavily_get_usage and report exactly what it returns, including any error body. Do not retry the search.

This is Tavily's rate limit and reconnecting does nothing for it. Development keys allow a lower requests-per-minute ceiling than production keys, so a burst of searches from one prompt can trip it while the same volume spread out succeeds. The response carries a retry-after value, which is the interval to respect. If it keeps happening, the shape of the work is the problem rather than the key: ask for one search with a higher max_results instead of several narrow searches in sequence.

Ask the agent to diagnose it:

Report the exact status code and any retry-after value from the failed Tavily call, then call tavily_get_usage and tell me the remaining credits. Do not retry the search.

Usually not a fault. tavily_search returns five results by default, and include_answer defaults to false, so a plain request for a search comes back as the smallest possible response with no summary attached. Ask for a specific max_results, set search_depth to advanced when relevance matters more than credits, and set include_answer true if you want Tavily's own summary rather than the agent writing one from titles. The other common cause is response shape: results nest under response_data.results, so an agent reading only the top level of the response can report an empty search when there were results.

Ask the agent to diagnose it:

Run tavily_search again for the same query with max_results 15, search_depth advanced, and include_answer true, then tell me how many results came back.

There are exactly five Tavily tools: tavily_search, tavily_extract, tavily_crawl, tavily_map, and tavily_get_usage. A doubled prefix means the agent concatenated the integration name onto a tool name that already carries it, and the error message names the nearest real tools, so retrying with one of those works. If the name looks correct, the catalog had not loaded when the first call went out and one retry clears it.

Ask the agent to diagnose it:

List the Tavily tools you actually have access to and use the exact name for what I asked.

Double-check that the API key for Tavily has the right scopes or account access. A valid key can still be too limited for some reads or writes.

Yes. ClawLink is the fastest way to connect Hermes to Tavily: link your Tavily account once in the browser and Hermes Agent can call the Tavily API through 5 ready-made tools — no custom code or token handling.

Install the plugin with hermes plugins install ClawLink-HQ/hermes-plugin --enable, then pair once: run hermes clawlink begin, approve the link in your browser, and run hermes clawlink finish. Connect Tavily in the dashboard and Hermes can use it from the next message — no config files, and the Tavily key you paste is stored server-side instead of in your environment.

About two minutes. Sign in, click Connect next to Tavily in the dashboard, authenticate, and Hermes Agent can use it from the next chat message.

The alternative to ClawLink is usually manual API key setup plus your own token handling, permission troubleshooting, and tool plumbing for Hermes Agent. That is fine if you want to build and maintain the integration yourself. Most teams just want Tavily working from chat.

Yes. Tavily does not offer OAuth, so there is no version of this that skips the key, and any page telling you otherwise is describing something else. The key is free to get: app.tavily.com issues one with 1,000 credits a month and no card. Tavily also runs a keyless mode, which sends an X-Tavily-Access-Mode header instead of a key and needs no account at all, but it covers only search and extract and is rate-limited without a visible budget. The crawl, map, and usage tools on this page have no keyless equivalent, which is why this connection takes a key.

Run hermes clawlink test to confirm the plugin is paired, then ask Hermes for a live search, for example "Use Tavily to search for today's top AI news". A ranked result list back in chat means the connection works. If you want to check the key itself rather than the pairing, ask the agent to call tavily_get_usage, which reads your remaining credits and takes no arguments.

You do, from your own Tavily balance, because it is your key. Tavily meters in credits: a basic search costs one and an advanced search costs two, so search depth directly halves how far a month's allowance goes. The free tier is 1,000 credits a month. This is worth stating plainly because the hosted setup can give the impression that usage is pooled or absorbed somewhere; it is not. tavily_get_usage is the tool that tells you where you stand before a heavy research session rather than after.

The connection breaks immediately and the agent starts returning 401s. Unlike OAuth there is no refresh step to recover it, so the fix is to reconnect Tavily from the ClawLink dashboard and paste the new key. The same applies if you revoke the key at app.tavily.com.

Pairing is a two-step handshake: run hermes clawlink begin, approve the link in your browser, then run hermes clawlink finish. If you ran finish before approving, or the approval link expired, run hermes clawlink begin again to get a fresh link. Confirm the plugin was installed with --enable, then verify with hermes clawlink test.