| name | web-research |
| description | Route ALL internet search / research / lookup tasks through Agent Reach (agent-reach CLI) — the capability layer that installs, health-checks, and routes 15 platforms (Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, GitHub, Exa full-web search, V2EX, LinkedIn, Xueqiu, Xiaoyuzhou, Facebook, Instagram, RSS, any web page). Use whenever the user asks to research / look up / search anything online, shares any platform URL, or wants web intelligence gathered. This is the DEFAULT research path for this user (explicit instruction: "use agent-reach for all search/research"). |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| author | Hermes Agent |
| license | MIT |
| platforms | ["windows","linux","macos"] |
| metadata | {"hermes":{"tags":["research","web-search","agent-reach","internet","social-platforms","chinese-platforms"]}} |
Web Research via Agent Reach
The user instructed: for any search or research task, use the Agent Reach
project (https://github.com/Panniantong/agent-reach) as the primary capability
layer. It is installed locally (recipe in references/install-verify.md).
Why Agent Reach (not ad-hoc fetching)
Agent Reach is a capability layer, NOT a wrapper. It selects, installs,
health-checks, and routes to the most reliable upstream tool per platform
(Jina Reader, Exa, yt-dlp, bili-cli, gh CLI, OpenCLI, ...). It gives curated,
self-healing coverage of platforms Hermes reaches poorly on its own — especially
Chinese / social platforms (小红书, Bilibili, 雪球, 小宇宙, Twitter, Reddit,
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn). When a platform blocks one method (e.g. Bilibili
banned yt-dlp → switched to bili-cli), the author updates the routing list and
the user does nothing.
Use Agent Reach for breadth / reading / search across platforms. Fall back to
Hermes native browser_* / web_extract for interactive work (clicking,
form-filling, logged-in write actions) that Agent Reach explicitly delegates to
BrowserAct.
When to use
- "research X", "search for X", "what does everyone say about X", "look up X"
- Any platform / URL mentioned: Twitter/X, Reddit, YouTube, Bilibili, 小红书,
Facebook, Instagram, V2EX, LinkedIn, 雪球, 小宇宙, GitHub, RSS, any web URL
- Multi-platform research → combine Exa + Twitter/Reddit + 小红书/B站, gather in
parallel, then synthesize
Workflow
- Doctor first for multi-platform tasks:
agent-reach doctor --json → read
each platform's active_backend; choose that command group. (Single
zero-config lookups can skip this.)
- Declare the backend: tell the user "using Agent Reach → X platform / Y
backend" before acting.
- Run the platform command from the cheat-sheet / references/agent-reach-channels.md.
- On failure: follow the retry chain in references; don't guess commands.
Verified commands (this environment)
curl -s "https://r.jina.ai/URL"
Q="fresher AI ML engineer remote India"
ENC=$(python -c "import urllib.parse,sys;print(urllib.parse.quote(sys.argv[1]))" "$Q")
curl -s "https://r.jina.ai/https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/?q=$ENC" \
| grep -oE '\[[^]]+\]\(https://duckduckgo.com/l/\?uddg=[^)]+\)' | head -10
yt-dlp --write-sub --skip-download -o "/tmp/%(id)s" "URL"
curl -s "https://www.v2ex.com/api/topics/hot.json" -H "User-Agent: agent-reach/1.0"
curl -s "https://api.bilibili.com/x/web-interface/search/all/v2?keyword=KEYWORD" -H "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0"
python -c "import feedparser,sys; e=feedparser.parse(sys.argv[1]).entries; print(e[0].title, e[0].link)" URL
Activation state (verified this session)
- Zero-config, LIVE: Web page reading (Jina Reader), YouTube (yt-dlp), V2EX, RSS,
Bilibili search, DuckDuckGo HTML search via Jina (this is the working web-SEARCH path).
- BROKEN here (do NOT rely on): Exa / mcporter semantic search.
mcporter call exa.web_search_exa(...) fails with "Unknown MCP server 'exa'" and agent-reach doctor
lists Exa as [X] 未安装 (node runtime broken). The skill's old claim that Exa is
"zero-config, live" is WRONG in this environment.
- Needs gh CLI (not installed): GitHub → fallback to native browser/web_extract.
- Login-gated (activate on request only): Twitter/X, Reddit, 小红书, Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, 小宇宙, 雪球. Activate via "帮我配 XXX" pattern — needs the
user's browser session or cookies; use dedicated alt accounts (ban risk).
Web search that works (no API key, no Exa)
q="remote AI ML engineer India work from home salary"
enc=$(python -c "import urllib.parse,sys;print(urllib.parse.quote(sys.argv[1]))" "$q")
curl -s "https://r.jina.ai/https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/?q=$enc" \
| grep -oE '\[[^]]+\]\(https://duckduckgo.com/l/\?uddg=[^)]+\)'
Google via Jina is blocked (JS redirect); DuckDuckGo HTML is the reliable free search.
For job boards, append site:linkedin.com/jobs, site:naukri.com, site:wellfound.com,
site:weworkremotely.com, site:remoteok.com to the query. See references/job-search.md.
Pitfalls
- Exa/mcporter is BROKEN in this environment (
mcporter call exa... → "Unknown MCP
server 'exa'"; doctor shows [X] 未安装). The old guidance to "trust a real call over the
probe" is wrong here — trust the probe. Use DuckDuckGo HTML via Jina for live search.
- yt-dlp needs node JS runtime on this host: ensure
%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config
contains --js-runtimes node or subtitle extraction fails.
- Jina rate-limits some domains (e.g. github.com) with a time-boxed 403
("AbuseAlleviationError"). Not Agent Reach's fault; retry later or use browser/web_extract.
- Login-gated platforms carry ban risk — always recommend alt accounts; never
the user's main account.
- Agent Reach is NOT on PyPI — install from the git clone (
pip install -e .);
pip install agent-reach fails. Verify with agent-reach doctor.
- Job searching vs job APPLYING (important policy): Searching the web for openings is
fine and encouraged. But NEVER build/run a bot that auto-submits applications — LinkedIn,
Naukri, Indeed ToS forbid it (account ban), CAPTCHAs block scripts, and mass generic applying
hurts a strong candidate via ATS filtering. For a fresher with real projects, targeted
apply >> blast. See references/job-search.md for the supported semi-auto workflow.
- HEADLESS BROWSER REALITY (state up front): the
browser_* tools drive a backend
headless Chromium the USER CANNOT SEE OR TYPE INTO. Never say "log in in my browser" — the
user can't. Any login-gated flow needs the user to PASTE creds into chat (risky) or be done
on a no-login board. For job apply, prefer no-login sources (RemoteOK index, RemoteAI) over
LinkedIn headless login. Details in references/job-search.md.
References
- references/agent-reach-channels.md — full 15-platform routing table + per-backend
commands + retry chain
- references/install-verify.md — install from clone, unlock backends (mcporter/Exa,
yt-dlp node), doctor verification, known pitfalls
- references/job-search.md — live remote/fresher job-search recipe (India) + apply policy
