Getting started

Glossary

Short definitions for the terms Scout uses across its API and docs.
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These are the words that turn up in the API reference and guides. Skim once when you start, refer back when a field name does not match what you expected.

Core concepts

Credit. The billing unit. One credit covers one Google SERP fetch. Two credits cover one page extract. Different SKUs are listed in the usage[] array on every response. See Pricing.

Objective. A short natural-language sentence that tells Scout what you actually want from a request. On /v1/search it re-ranks results by relevance and drops off-topic rows. On /v1/extract it triggers auto-discovery of subpages that match the objective. The field is free text — "play store URLs", "pricing per plan", and "funding amount and investors" are all valid.

SKU. A named line item on the usage[] array, e.g. sku_search, sku_objective_rerank. Each is billed independently and only appears when the feature was used.

Endpoints, by shape

Synchronous endpoint. Returns the full response in one HTTP call. Used by /v1/search (at depth: instant, fast, or auto), /v1/extract, and /v1/chat/completions.

Asynchronous endpoint. Returns a task_id or search_id in under a second, then runs the work in the background. Poll the run, stream its events over SSE or WebSocket, or set a webhook URL to receive the completed payload. Used by /v1/task, /v1/search?depth=deep, /v1/findall, and /v1/monitors.

Run. A single execution of an asynchronous endpoint. Identified by its task_id, search_id, findall_id, or monitor_event_id. Status moves through queued → running → completed | failed | cancelled.

Search-specific

Depth. Controls how hard Scout works for a search.

  • instant — fewer rows, single SERP page, lowest latency.
  • fast — single SERP page, ten rows per query.
  • auto (default) — up to five SERP pages per query, paginated in parallel to satisfy limit.
  • deep — async; planner-driven multi-query research, returns a citation-backed report.

Excerpt. A short verbatim slice from a search result. Surfaced under excerpts[] on each row, capped by advanced_settings.excerpt_settings.max_chars_per_result.

Highlight. A focused excerpt picked by an LLM based on the objective. Opt in via advanced_settings.contents.highlights.

Summary. A free-text or structured-JSON summary of a result page, written by an LLM. Opt in via advanced_settings.contents.summary. Supports OpenAI’s response_format shape for JSON-schema output.

Task-specific

Processor. The model and effort tier the agent uses. Pick when you create a task.

  • base — Claude Haiku, no thinking, capped at three tool calls. Fastest and cheapest.
  • core — Claude Sonnet with adaptive thinking, up to eight tool calls. The default.
  • ultra — Claude Opus with high effort, up to fifteen tool calls. Best when correctness matters more than cost.
  • research — multi-step planner → fan-out search → fetch → cited report. Used for genuine open-ended research questions.

Findings. Per-sub-query answers on a research task. Each carries an answer, a confidence label, and the indices of the sources that back the answer.

Basis. Per-field citation evidence on a task’s structured output. For each field on the output object, basis[] lists the URLs Scout actually read to populate it, plus a one-line reason.

Monitor-specific

Cadence. How often a monitor runs. Either a friendly name (hourly, daily, weekly) or a five-field cron expression.

Mode. diff (default) only emits an event when content changes between runs. snapshot emits on every run.

Filter prompt. Optional natural-language predicate. The monitor runs as scheduled, then asks Claude whether the result satisfies the predicate. The event is marked matched, skipped, or ok accordingly.

Webhook signature. When webhook_secret is set, outgoing webhook calls include an X-Scout-Signature: sha256=<hex> header — the HMAC of the raw request body. Use this to verify the payload came from Scout. See Webhooks.

Common response fields

credits. Total billing units for the call.

usage[]. Per-SKU breakdown of the same number.

warnings. A list of soft issues that did not fail the request (e.g. a domain in exclude_domains that did not match anything). null when no warnings apply.

X-Cache. Response header — HIT if the result was served from the SERP cache, MISS otherwise.

X-Elapsed-Ms. Response header — server-side processing time.