jp-subsidies: subsidy search and weekly watch, built on the jGrants public API

Find Japanese subsidies that match a small business, sole proprietor, or professional practice, and get a weekly alert for new matches and deadlines within N days — built on the jGrants public API (no API key). The product name is jp-subsidies. --no-agent formatting uses no model. Delivery to bot-chat is one model turn: the agent follows the fetched text, and that turn costs a model call.

You:    東京で人材系の補助金を募集中だけ見たい
        (Tokyo — open calls about “人材” / human resources)
Hermes: subsidies_search(keyword="人材", target_area_search="東京都", acceptance=1)
        → titles, subsidy_max_limit (0 often means unset — see detail), acceptance windows…
          (rate and detail URL are absent from the list → null)
        subsidies_detail(subsidy_id="…") → rate, portal URL, attachment names

日本語の説明は下にあります

Install

hermes plugins install TakeshiTGAL/hermes-plugin-subsidies --enable

Once listed in the Hermes catalog, hermes plugins install jp-subsidies --enable works too. For a local clone: hermes plugins install "file://$PWD" --enable.

No API key. Requires Hermes Agent 0.21.4 or later (manifest_version: 2).

Tools, CLI, and slash command

Surface	What it does
subsidies_search	Keyword search plus optional area / industry / employee-size / purpose enums / acceptance. Optional deadline_from / deadline_to filter client-side.
subsidies_detail	One id → rate, portal URL, HTML detail, attachment names. Optional save_attachments writes under <HERMES_HOME>/plugin-data/jp-subsidies/files/<id>/ for this profile (via plugin_data_dir) through Hermes' write guard.
subsidies_watch_setup	Saves criteria + baseline IDs under <HERMES_HOME>/plugin-data/jp-subsidies/ for this profile, writes a weekly cron script, prints hermes cron create … --no-agent.
CLI hermes jp-subsidies schedule|check	Same watch setup / one-shot check without a model turn. Not registered when Hermes plugins.isolation is host (tools and /subsidies still are).
Slash /subsidies [check] [profile]	Reads the saved watch (calls the jGrants list API) and does not advance seen_ids or last_count. A schedule or delivery target is refused, including /subsidies check 5m and /subsidies check every.

Enum filters (do not invent spellings)

industry, target_area_search, target_number_of_employees, and use_purpose must match jGrants enum strings exactly. Wrong values (e.g. industry 医療・福祉 instead of 医療、福祉) are rejected before the HTTP call, so a bad value is not shown as no matches.

What the list API does not return

The list endpoint does not include subsidy_rate or front_subsidy_detail_page_url. The plugin returns those fields as null in search results and does not invent portal URLs. Call subsidies_detail.

Weekly watch (Hermes-specific)

hermes jp-subsidies schedule --keyword 設備 --watch osaka
# --watch is the watch name. It is not -p and not --profile.
# A Hermes profile named osaka is not required. The watch is written in the current home.
# If the current Hermes profile is not default, the printed cron line includes -p <name>.
# If the profiles API cannot be loaded, raises, or no longer has the active-profile function, schedule refuses before writing state or the script. It does not print a line for the default home.
# default --deliver origin  (use telegram/… if you prefer; 'local' does not notify chat)
# then run the printed: hermes cron create '0 9 * * 1' --no-agent --script …

• First successful setup stores every matching id as a baseline and says so; it does not dump them all as “new”.
• Re-running setup with the same criteria keeps previous seen_ids unchanged (does not absorb the current list into seen) and says it is a re-setup (not a first run). Ids that appeared since the last successful check remain reportable on the next check.
• Re-running setup with different criteria retakes a new baseline (discards old seen_ids) so prior matches are not flooded as “new” next week. If the first setup, or a criteria change, sees 0 list rows, it warns that a later non-zero list would all look new. A same-criteria re-setup that sees 0 rows keeps the previous seen_ids. When the previous last_count was greater than 0, that count is kept and the drop warning is shown (the next check still treats new items and deadlines as unverified). A kept non-empty seen set is not called an empty baseline. If the saved seen set is already empty, the message gives the same empty-baseline warning as the first run.
• Profile names are stored unchanged (1–64 ASCII letters, digits, ., _, -). A second name that differs only by letter case (Tokyo and tokyo) is refused before either the watch JSON or the cron script is written, including when only the cron script is left. 東京 and 大阪 are rejected; they are not both saved as default. If Hermes' profiles API cannot be loaded, raises, or no longer exposes the active-profile function, schedule refuses before it writes the watch state or the cron script. That failure is not treated as the default home, and no cron line is printed.
• Keywords may contain spaces (人材 育成 is sent as typed). Spaces inside the keyword are kept and not rejected. Leading and trailing spaces are stripped.
• A date-only deadline_to (YYYY-MM-DD) keeps that UTC calendar day through 23:59:59.999999Z. Weekly lines show the same instant in JST. An API end of T15:00:00.000Z is 00:00 JST on the next calendar day, and it still matches deadline_to of the UTC date.
• Later cron runs list ids that were not in the seen set, and items whose acceptance_end_datetime falls within watch_deadline_days (default 14, config max 30). Only the cron script advances seen_ids and last_count. hermes jp-subsidies check and /subsidies show the same text and leave that state unchanged, so a manual check does not consume the weekly new list. A manual check does not advance seen. Integers below 1 are rejected (0 is not changed to 1). Values above the config cap are reduced to the cap and saved on the watch state. Cron uses that saved deadline_days; it does not re-read config (the cron process has no plugin ctx). Deadlines in the weekly text are shown in JST.
• The suggested cron expression 0 9 * * 1 is interpreted in Hermes' configured timezone, not necessarily Monday 09:00 JST.
• If metadata.resultset.count is missing or ≠ the number of result rows, the call fails (not treated as empty). If the count drops from N>0 to 0 after a prior success, the message includes a warning, shows new items and deadlines as unverified (not “0 new” and not “0 deadlines”), and repeats the warning until a non-zero count returns.
• API/network failure is reported as a failure. Seen ids are not replaced with an empty set.
• Formatting with --no-agent uses no model. Delivery to bot-chat is one model turn on the fetched text and costs a model call. If chat delivery fails after the weekly script succeeds, seen ids have already advanced and the weekly text remains under the Hermes home's cron/output/. Default deliver is origin: Hermes sends to the job’s captured origin chat when one exists (typical if you create the cron from a chat/agent turn). A bare CLI hermes cron create line often has no origin — then Hermes falls back to the configured home channel, or skips chat delivery if none is set. origin does not promise a chat message. Prefer an explicit target (e.g. telegram:<chat_id>) when scheduling from CLI. --deliver accepts origin, local, all, bot-chat (this profile's Bot Chat) or bot-chat:<profile> (a Hermes profile on this machine, not a chat id), a platform name this Hermes build's cron scheduler can deliver to (telegram), platform:chat_id, a comma combination of those (origin,all), and, when jp-chatwork is enabled, a platform that plugin registered (chatwork:<id>). A name this build cannot deliver, and a bot-chat:<profile> whose profile is not on this machine, are refused before the watch state and the script are written. cli, cron, and api_server are rejected. Words such as monday, 5, @daily, 9am, in 5m, at 9am, and * are rejected. The allowlist reads Hermes' non-public gateway.platform_registry.registered_names(). --deliver local only writes under the Hermes home’s cron/output/ and does not notify chat. Any chat delivery needs the Hermes gateway (hermes cron status) and reaches the messaging platform through Hermes (not this plugin). --when zzz and an empty when are refused before state or the script is written. A when that looks like a delivery target is refused and belongs in --deliver.
• Removing the plugin does not remove the cron job, scripts under the Hermes home’s scripts/, or watch/attachment data under <HERMES_HOME>/plugin-data/jp-subsidies/ (per profile). Stop with hermes cron remove <job id> (hermes cron list), then delete those files.
• There is no per-day request quota in this plugin (only the published 10/s ceiling and the in-process ≥0.15s gap). Unattended cron can call jGrants every week without a human. Cron scripts are ordinary Python on your machine — not an adversarial sandbox.
• Agent-started path: subsidies_watch_setup / hermes jp-subsidies schedule can be started from chat; they write state + script and print a hermes cron create line for you (or the agent) to run. That line always creates a new job. It does not look up or replace an existing one; running it twice delivers the same weekly check twice. Remove the old id with hermes cron list then hermes cron remove <job id> before running the line again. Slash /subsidies and hermes jp-subsidies check call the list API and do not advance seen_ids or last_count. They do not accept a schedule or a delivery target, including /subsidies check 5m and /subsidies check every (those are periods, not profile names).
• metadata.resultset.count matching the number of rows means this response was not truncated in transit. It does not prove the server returned every subsidy that matches the keyword (a server-side cap would not be visible here).
• Who can call the tools: the subsidies toolset is enabled on every platform by default, including gateways. Anyone a gateway admits can call these tools. There is no API key; those calls use the public jGrants API and can write this profile's watch state and saved files. For example, while CHATWORK_ALLOWED_USERS is unset, everyone in a room listed in CHATWORK_ROOMS can talk to the bot and therefore call these tools. Turn the toolset off per platform with hermes tools. /subsidies is outside that switch. If allow_admin_from is unset, anyone a gateway admits can run it. Limit it with allow_admin_from, user_allowed_commands, or group_user_allowed_commands (an empty DM list can fall through to the room list), or disable the plugin. A manual check is read-only and does not change the weekly seen set. CLI use is the person running Hermes. With plugins.isolation: host, hermes jp-subsidies is not registered; the three tools and /subsidies still are.
• Disk records are watch criteria, subsidy ids, timestamps, cron scripts, and attachment bytes you asked to save. The plugin does not record the speaker's name or user id. The Hermes session transcript still contains the tool text.
• tests/ is shipped with the repo and is not loaded by register().

Credit and terms

Per jGrants Web-API 利用規約 第5条1項一, every reply includes:

出典：J グランツ

Search, detail, and weekly text are curated/structured outputs, so every tool reply also includes the 第5条1項二 processed_note. Do not present edited text as if the government authored it.

Published call limit (API利用概要): 10 requests / 1 second. This plugin spaces live GETs by ≥0.15s in-process. Attachment PDFs/forms may carry third-party rights (terms 第5条2項); the plugin saves bytes you asked for but does not republish their text.

Open API landing page: https://www.jgrants-portal.go.jp/open-api. Spec: https://developers.digital.go.jp/documents/jgrants/api/.

Security and privacy

• HTTPS only to api.jgrants-portal.go.jp (same-host HTTPS redirects only).
• No API key and no telemetry.
• One call waits at most 60 seconds, including the weekly cron script, retries a transient failure at most twice, and refuses a response over 40 MiB.
• search_limit and watch_deadline_days caps cannot be raised by tool arguments above config. Integers below 1 are rejected (0 is not changed to 1).
• Disk writes go under <HERMES_HOME>/plugin-data/jp-subsidies/ for this profile via plugins.plugin_storage.plugin_data_dir (follows Hermes get_hermes_home(), including profile / HERMES_DATA_DIR_SUFFIX / Windows). Cron scripts go under the same home’s scripts/ (plugin_data_dir(…).parent.parent / "scripts"). If plugin_data_dir cannot be loaded, the plugin refuses. It does not fall back to HERMES_HOME or ~/.hermes. Hermes agent.file_safety write guard is required before mkdir/write.
• Subsidy ids and file names are sanitized before building paths. File names that match after ignoring letter case (File.PDF and file.pdf) or after Unicode NFC/NFD normalization (が.pdf) are one file. Subsidy ids that differ only by letter case are one directory. Either collision refuses the save before any write.

What was not checked

• A live gateway with allow_admin_from set was not used to send /subsidies. Who can run the command is taken from Hermes slash rules.
• With plugins.isolation: host, a tool was not called through to the end inside the child process. Validate shows that the CLI is skipped and that the three tools and /subsidies remain.
• A configured search_limit of 100 was not confirmed against a live API body of exactly 100 rows.
• With jp-chatwork actually loaded, delivery of chatwork:<id> into a chat was not confirmed. Tests only swap in a registered name and check the allowlist.
• A weekly message was not sent to a real chat, and a real cron job was not watched until it fired and was received.
• Subsidy-rate text was not compared with a grant-guidelines PDF. The portal page is empty HTML, and that page's DOM is not used as a source.
• The detail v2 path was not called.
• Whether the server applies a hidden cap once a keyword has several hundred rows was not checked. A count that matches the rows does not prove there is no such cap.
• The 0.15 second gap was not measured between separate processes. The gap applies inside one process only.

Reference

API parameter shapes and credit wording were cross-checked against the MIT-licensed digital-go-jp/jgrants-mcp-server (Copyright (c) 2025 Digital Agency, Government of Japan). See NOTICE. This plugin is not that MCP server; it is a Hermes Agent plugin with cron watch on top of the same public API.

License

MIT. See LICENSE and NOTICE.

---

日本語

中小企業・個人事業主・士業向けに、jGrants の公開 API で補助金を探し、週1回で「新着」と「締切が近いもの」を届ける Hermes プラグインです。製品名は jp-subsidies で、名乗りは built on the jGrants public API です。--no-agent の整形はモデルを使いません。bot-chat への配信は、外から取った文に従うモデルの1ターンで、費用がかかります。

• 検索: キーワード（必須・2文字以上。途中のスペースは拒否しない。前後の空白だけ削る）、地域・業種・従業員数・利用目的は 所定の文言のみ（誤ると HTTP の前に拒否する。無該当とは見せない）。日付だけの deadline_to は UTC のその日の終わり。週次の表示は JST
• 詳細: 補助率・ポータル URL・HTML 詳細・添付ファイル名。保存はプロファイルごとの <HERMES_HOME>/plugin-data/jp-subsidies/。添付名は大文字小文字と Unicode の NFC/NFD を同一視し、衝突したら書く前に全部拒否する。補助金 ID の大文字小文字だけが違う場合も、別フォルダには書かず拒否する
• 週次: 初回は基準保存のみ。同じ条件の再設定は seen_ids を残す。一覧が0件で前の件数が1以上ならその件数を残して警告する。保存済みの seen が0件の再設定は、初回と同じ「基準は空」の注意を出す。条件を変えた再設定は基準を取り直す。件数が前回より 0 に落ちたら、新着も締切も unverified（0件とは書かない）。プロファイル名は英数字と . _ -（東京 は default にしない）。Tokyo と tokyo は、監視 JSON と cron スクリプトのどちらも書く前に拒否する（スクリプトだけ残っているときも含む）。deadline_days の 0 は拒否。cron は setup で保存した日数を使い、設定は読み直さない。配信先は origin・local・all・bot-chat・bot-chat:<profile>（チャット id ではなく、この機械の Hermes プロファイル名）・この Hermes が cron で届けられるプラットフォーム名・platform:chat_id・それらのカンマ結合（origin,all）と、jp-chatwork を有効にしたときの面（chatwork:<id>）です。届けられない名前と、この機械に無いプロファイルは、状態とスクリプトを書く前に拒否します。照合は gateway.platform_registry.registered_names() を読みます。cli・cron・api_server と、monday や 5 や @daily は拒否します。監視の名前は --watch です（-p と --profile は使いません）。Hermes のプロファイルが default でなければ、印刷する cron 行に -p が付きます。プロファイル API が読めないとき、例外のとき、関数名が変わったときは、default として行を出さず、状態とスクリプトを書く前に拒否します。--when zzz と空の when は、状態とスクリプトを書く前に拒否します。/subsidies と hermes jp-subsidies check は読むだけで、seen_ids と last_count は進めません（進めるのは cron だけ）。origin や local は配信先なので拒否します。check 5m と check every は周期として拒否する（プロファイル名としては探さない）
• 配信の既定は origin（チャットから cron を作ると origin に届くことが多い。CLI だけの create では origin が無く home に落ちるか、未設定なら通知しないことがある。確実なら telegram:… など明示）。local は Hermes home の cron/output/ のみで通知しません。cron の配信が失敗しても、週次スクリプトが成功したあとなら seen は既に進んでおり、本文は Hermes home の cron/output/ に残ります。印刷した hermes cron create は毎回新しいジョブです（同じ行を二度実行すると二通届く）。0 9 * * 1 は Hermes のタイムゾーンです（JST とは限りません）
• subsidies の道具は既定でゲートウェイを含む全部の面で有効です。CHATWORK_ALLOWED_USERS が無いとき、CHATWORK_ROOMS に書いた部屋の全員がこの道具を呼べます（API キーは無く、公開 API と、このプロファイルの監視状態を書けます）。面ごとに止めるには hermes tools。/subsidies はその切り替えの外です。allow_admin_from が未設定なら、ゲートウェイに入れる人は誰でも使えます。絞るには allow_admin_from・user_allowed_commands・group_user_allowed_commands（DM の一覧が空だと部屋の一覧に落ちることがある）、またはプラグインを無効にします。手動の check は読むだけで、週次の seen は変えません。plugins.isolation: host では hermes jp-subsidies は登録されません。ツールと /subsidies は残ります。話した人の名前と ID は記録しません

表示するときは必ず 出典：J グランツ と加工注記を付けてください（API利用規約 第5条）。

確かめていないこと: 実ゲートウェイに allow_admin_from を付けて /subsidies を送ったこと、plugins.isolation: host の子プロセスで道具を最後まで呼んだこと、search_limit が100の実応答、jp-chatwork を読み込んだ状態の chatwork:<id> の到着、実在のチャットへの週次と本物の cron の受信、補助率と交付要綱 PDF の照合、詳細の v2 パス、キーワードが数百件のときのサーバ側の見えない上限、別プロセスのあいだの 0.15 秒です。件数の一致はその上限が無い証明ではありません。0.15 秒はプロセスの中だけです。ポータル画面の DOM は一次資料にしていません。