Keenable for Hermes Agent

Web search and page fetching through Keenable's hosted MCP server, plus two skills that teach the agent to search well and to research a question across many sources. Works out of the box with no API key and no account. An optional key only lifts the keyless rate limits.

The package is a portable Agent Plugins v1 package: plugin.json, one remote MCP connection in mcp.json, and Markdown skills. It has no Python code, no runtime dependencies, and no local processes. Requires Hermes Agent 0.21.5 or later with its MCP support installed.

How this relates to Hermes's built-in Keenable backend

Hermes already ships Keenable as a built-in web backend: it is one of the keyless providers behind Hermes's own web_search and web_extract tools. This plugin does not replace or reconfigure that backend. It registers no web search provider and leaves web_search / web_extract provider selection unchanged.

What it adds:

Keenable's MCP tools as direct tools, with the controls the built-in backend does not expose: single-site search (site), publish-date bounds (published_after, published_before), result count and snippet length, and page fetches that return only what a prompt asks for.
Two skills: keenable-search (arguments, when to fetch, limits, troubleshooting) and keenable-research (split a question, search in parallel, fetch only the gaps, cite every claim).

Install

From the Hermes plugin catalog (once the entry is listed):

hermes plugins install keenable-plugin
hermes plugins enable keenable-plugin

Directly from this repository:

hermes plugins install keenableai/keenable-hermes-plugin --no-enable
hermes plugins enable keenable-plugin

Start a new session so Hermes loads the enabled package. Then try:

Use the Keenable search tool to find this week's release notes for Hermes Agent and cite them.

Hermes namespaces plugin skills to avoid collisions, and the prefix depends on your Hermes version. Ask the agent to run skills_list and load keenable-research or keenable-search with skill_view.

To remove it: hermes plugins disable keenable-plugin or hermes plugins remove keenable-plugin.

Tools and skills

Hermes tool	Use
`mcp__keenable__search_web_pages`	Search the web. Returns title, URL and a text snippet per result.
`mcp__keenable__fetch_page_content`	Read a page as clean markdown, or only the part a `prompt` asks for.

Skill	Use
keenable-search	Tool arguments, when to fetch, keyless limits, troubleshooting.
keenable-research	Multi-source research with parallel searches, recency filters and citations.

The server also advertises empty resource and prompt lists, so Hermes adds its generic list_resources, read_resource, list_prompts and get_prompt helpers for it. They return nothing useful and can be ignored; the API-key entry below turns them off.

Optional: API key

Without a key, requests use Keenable's shared public pool: 1,000 requests per hour and at most 10 requests per second per IP address. A Keenable API key removes the hourly cap (keys come with a free monthly allowance; create one in the console).

Store the key in the active Hermes profile:

hermes config set KEENABLE_API_KEY <your key>

Merge this entry into the same profile's config.yaml (keep your other mcp_servers):

mcp_servers:
  keenable:
    url: https://api.keenable.ai/mcp
    strict_redirect_headers: true
    headers:
      X-API-Key: "${KEENABLE_API_KEY}"
      X-Keenable-Title: hermes-plugin
    tools:
      resources: false
      prompts: false

Start a new session.

Good to know:

A config.yaml server named keenable replaces the plugin's packaged keyless connection as a whole. Delete the entry to go back to keyless.
Set the key first. Hermes refuses to connect a server whose header still contains an unset ${KEENABLE_API_KEY}, and the Keenable tools disappear until the key is set or the entry is removed. This is also why the packaged connection carries no key placeholder: it has to work for everyone without one.
Hermes's built-in Keenable web backend reads the same KEENABLE_API_KEY. If you have not configured another web backend or set another provider's key, Hermes's own web_search / web_extract then use Keenable with your key instead of the keyless rotation.

Never paste a key into chat, this repository, or mcp.json.

Data flow

Requests go to https://api.keenable.ai/mcp over HTTPS. Keenable receives the search queries, the URLs to fetch, and any fetch prompt the agent sends. With a prompt, Keenable reads the page server-side with a language model and returns only the answer.
Every request carries X-Keenable-Title: hermes-plugin, an application label so Keenable can tell this integration's traffic apart. It carries no user or device identifier.
X-API-Key is sent only if you configure it as described above.
The package runs no local processes, background workers or self-updater, reads no credential files, and has no telemetry of its own. Hermes owns the MCP connection, configuration and approvals.
Web content is untrusted. Both skills tell the agent not to follow instructions found in pages.

Keenable's privacy policy and terms apply to the hosted service.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
No `mcp__keenable__*` tools	Run `hermes plugins enable keenable-plugin` and start a new session. If you added the API-key entry, check that `KEENABLE_API_KEY` is set in that profile.
"Rate limit exceeded"	Wait and reduce the number of calls, or add an API key.
HTTP 401 "Invalid API key"	The configured key is wrong or revoked. Fix it, or delete the API-key entry to go back to keyless.
"Unknown parameter(s)"	The server rejects arguments it does not know. Use the arguments listed in the `keenable-search` skill.
"conflicts with native config; skipping" in the log	Expected when you added the API-key entry: your `config.yaml` entry is used instead of the packaged one.

Development

The installed plugin is data and Markdown. The tests import Hermes's own Agent Plugins v1 loader, so run them with the Python of a Hermes install:

python -m unittest discover -s tests -v
hermes plugins validate . --install-deps

CI runs both against pinned Hermes releases (0.21.5 and 0.22.5) on every push.

keenable-plugin

README