FAQs
About the product
What is Scout? A web-intelligence API for AI agents. You send JSON, you get JSON — ranked search results, cleaned page content, multi-step research with citations, scheduled monitors. There is no SDK to install and no scraping infrastructure to run.
How is Scout different from a Google API? Google’s APIs return raw SERP rows. Scout adds objective-aware re-ranking, page extraction, focused excerpts, summaries, multi-step research with planner and citations, and scheduled monitors. The output is shaped for direct consumption by LLMs and agent frameworks.
Where does the data come from? The live public web. Scout fetches every result and page at request time. Results are not pre-indexed or cached for more than a short freshness window, so you always see what is online right now.
Is content cached? SERPs are cached briefly to absorb retries and rate-limited bursts. Page extractions cache by URL with a configurable max age — the default is short. LLM outputs (re-ranking, highlights, summaries) are cached per-objective per-input so identical requests do not pay twice.
Authentication and access
How do I get an API key? Sign in at platform.usescout.sh and create one under Settings → API keys. Keys are scoped to your team.
Can I have multiple keys? Yes — one per service or environment is the recommended pattern. Each can be rotated or revoked independently.
What happens when I rotate a key? The old key keeps working for 24 hours after the new one is issued, so you can roll your deployments without downtime.
Limits and pricing
How much does a call cost? See Pricing for the full table. The short version: 1 credit per search query, 2 per extracted URL, 1 per agent step on a task, plus opt-in line items for re-ranking, content extraction and summaries. Plans start at 29/mo (Builder, 5,500), and $99/mo (Scale, 25,500). Annual saves about 20%.
What happens if I hit my monthly cap?
On the free plan, requests return 429 Too Many Requests until the
next reset. On Builder and Scale, overage is billed at the per-credit
rate of your plan and the API keeps serving.
Is there a per-key rate limit? Not yet. Today the limits are at the account level and on a shared concurrency pool. See Rate limits for the practical shape.
Data and privacy
Do you store the queries I send? Yes — query text and metadata are retained for billing, debugging, and abuse prevention. You can purge specific records from the dashboard. We never share queries with third parties.
Do you store the results? SERPs and extracted pages are cached briefly to absorb retries; that cache is not personalized and is shared across accounts. The re-ranking, highlights, summary, and research outputs that were generated for your specific request are retained on your run record until you delete it.
Are the URLs Scout reads recorded anywhere?
The list of URLs visited during a research task is part of the run
payload (sources[] and the basis[] field). It is visible to anyone
with that task_id plus a valid API key for the same team.
Can I use Scout for personal data?
Only data that is public on the open web. Scout does not authenticate
into gated pages and does not work with credentials. If a request
asks Scout to read a page that requires login, the response will
contain an errors[] entry.
Reliability
What is your uptime? A live status page is planned. In the meantime, Scout’s typical synchronous-endpoint p95 is under 5 seconds; async runs depend on the shape of the work. If you need an SLA, get in touch.
What do I do when I see a 503? Retry with exponential backoff. See Rate limits for the recommended pattern. Most 503s are transient and clear within seconds.
Where can I report a bug or request a feature?
Email support@usescout.sh. Please
include a search_id, task_id, or other run identifier when you
can — it makes debugging much faster.
Integration
Can I use Scout from the browser? You can, but you should not embed your API key in client-side code. Call Scout from your own backend and forward results to the browser. Same principle as any API key.
Is there a Python or TypeScript SDK?
Not yet. The API is small enough that a bare HTTP client (requests,
fetch, httpx) is usually all you need. Official SDKs are on the
roadmap.
Does Scout work with LangChain, LlamaIndex, etc.? Anywhere that accepts a tool spec or an HTTP retriever, you can plug Scout in directly. Native adapters for the popular agent frameworks are on the roadmap.
Can I run Scout self-hosted? No. Scout is offered as a hosted API only.