tavily.com

tavily.com · Developer / Data APIs modeIntegrated

Last probed 2026-10-07 04:35 UTC · Provisional

tavily.com — Tavily is the real‑time search engine for AI agents and RAG workflows — Fast and secure APIs for web search and content extraction.

81 / 100triageInterrupt Score(range 50–100 · 8 properties unassessed)How much automated use this service interrupts — the badge-driving metric. Unassessed properties are provisionally scored at 50%; evidence-graded successes at 25%.

Custody / RiskUnknown

ConfidenceProvisional

Verdict: An agent can discover on its own. Activate and operate are only partly probed. Manage isn't probed yet.

DiscoverEasy
ActivateIncomplete
OperateIncomplete
ManageNot yet probed

Capability parity

Each stage answers one question about what an agent can do unattended. Stages are ordered by the credential-gateway dependency: Activate issues the keys that unlock Operate and Manage. A row marked “Not yet probed” means no probe has tried that capability yet — a different ledger from the “unassessed” properties under Findings, where no probe tier capable of catching that interrupt has run.

Discover

Can an agent find and read it, no account?

Easy

Be found by a retrieval agentEasy
Retrieval access present.
Evidence
Path tried
robots.txt / sitemap / discovery headers
Where it stalled
completed
Evidence tier
Tier 1 (unauth probe)
Verification
Evidence-only — graded from passive signal, not live-verified.
Backing checks
sitemap_xml, link_header_discovery
Read what it does and how to use itEasy
Machine-readable docs present.
Evidence
Path tried
llms.txt / AGENTS.md / schema.org / docs
Where it stalled
completed
Evidence tier
Tier 1 (unauth probe)
Verification
Evidence-only — graded from passive signal, not live-verified.
Backing checks
llms_txt, llms_full_txt, agents_md, agent_card, schema_org_jsonld
Read pricing & limits without loginEasy
Public pricing or limits are visible without login.
Evidence
Path tried
homepage links / pricing / plans
Where it stalled
completed
Evidence tier
Tier 0 (passive scan)
Verification
Evidence-only — graded from passive signal, not live-verified.
Backing checks
pricing_public

Activate

Can an agent sign up and walk away with the keys it needs?

Incomplete

Assessment incomplete - not yet probed: Obtain an API / MCP access credential; Obtain a management / admin key.

Create an account self-serveEasy
Signup inspected — no blocker found.
Evidence
Path tried
signup flow
Where it stalled
completed
Evidence tier
Tier 1 (unauth probe)
Verification
Evidence-only — graded from passive signal, not live-verified.
Obtain an API / MCP access credentialNot yet probed
No self-serve credential signal detected - key issuance not yet probed.
Obtain a management / admin keyNot yet probed
No scoped or administrative key path was confirmed after activation.
Accept the terms without a bot-banEasy
No bot-prohibition signal found.
Evidence
Path tried
ToS / policy scan
Where it stalled
completed
Evidence tier
Tier 0 (passive scan)
Verification
Evidence-only — graded from passive signal, not live-verified.

Operate

Can an agent do the service's actual jobs — call, transact, pay?

Incomplete

Assessment incomplete - not yet probed: Pay via an agent rail (x402 / ACP / AP2).

Call the primary service over MCP / APIEasy
Machine interface present — evidence-only, not live-verified.
Evidence
Path tried
API / MCP / browser
Where it stalled
completed
Evidence tier
Tier 1 (unauth probe)
Verification
Evidence-only — graded from passive signal, not live-verified.
Backing checks
mcp_server, api_catalog
Complete a transaction / checkoutNot applicable
Integrated tool — the API call is the transaction, no separate checkout.
Pay via an agent rail (x402 / ACP / AP2)Not yet probed
No agent-payment metadata detected - payment rails not yet probed.

Manage

Can an agent administer the account and provision resources?

Not yet probed

No probe has attempted this stage yet: Provision / scale / tear down a service; Change account details / set budget / rotate keys; View usage & billing; Cancel / export / delete (offboard).

Provision / scale / tear down a serviceNot yet probed
Not probed - provisioning is not part of the probe suite yet.
Change account details / set budget / rotate keysNot yet probed
Not probed - account admin is not part of the probe suite yet.
View usage & billingNot yet probed
Authenticated usage and billing access was not confirmed.
Cancel / export / delete (offboard)Not yet probed
No self-serve cancellation, export, or deletion path was confirmed.

Findings

How scoring works →

Interrupt tier: Low-Interrupt — no interrupts found; interrupt score 81 / 100 — the badge-driving metric. (range 50–100 · 8 unassessed)

Every tool starts at 100. Each interrupt found subtracts a penalty of base weight × timing × hardness × evidence — the multiplier values below come from the same rubric tables the score is computed with. New snapshots also provisionally subtract 50% of the full worst-case tax for each unassessed property and 25% for evidence-graded successes not live-verified by Tier 2.

Property coverage

A check only counts as clean when a probe tier capable of detecting that interrupt actually ran and found nothing. Not tested ≠ clean.

Property	Stage	State	Evidence	Required
Mandatory phone verification call	activate	unassessed	No probe tier that can detect this has run yet — unknown, not clean. Tier 2 assesses this property.	no
Mailed physical code (postal)	activate	unassessed	No probe tier that can detect this has run yet — unknown, not clean. Tier 2 assesses this property.	no
“Contact sales” wall (no self-serve path)	activate	unassessed	No probe tier that can detect this has run yet — unknown, not clean. Tier 2 assesses this property.	no
Manual approval queue	activate	unassessed	No probe tier that can detect this has run yet — unknown, not clean. Tier 2 assesses this property.	no
Rate-limit-triggered manual review	manage	unassessed	No probe tier that can detect this has run yet — unknown, not clean. Tier 2 assesses this property.	no
One-time account / payment-method provisioning	manage	unassessed	No probe tier that can detect this has run yet — unknown, not clean. Tier 2 assesses this property.	no
Identity / KYC verification	activate	unassessed	No probe tier that can detect this has run yet — unknown, not clean. Tier 2 assesses this property.	no
Crypto wallet / key-custody setup	operate	unassessed	No probe tier that can detect this has run yet — unknown, not clean. Tier 2 assesses this property.	no
CAPTCHA / bot-challenge	activate	success	None found — checked at Tier 0 (passive scan) + Tier 1 (unauth probe) (evidence-graded; not yet live-verified by a Tier 2 probe) Tier 0 assesses this property.	no
Email OTP verification	activate	success	None found — checked at Tier 1 (unauth probe) (evidence-graded; not yet live-verified by a Tier 2 probe) Tier 1 assesses this property.	no
SMS / phone OTP verification	activate	success	None found — checked at Tier 1 (unauth probe) (evidence-graded; not yet live-verified by a Tier 2 probe) Tier 1 assesses this property.	no
ToS clause banning automated/bot access	discover	success	None found — checked at Tier 0 (passive scan) (evidence-graded; not yet live-verified by a Tier 2 probe) Tier 0 assesses this property.	no
Mandatory redirect to vendor’s own site	operate	success	None found — checked at Tier 1 (unauth probe) (evidence-graded; not yet live-verified by a Tier 2 probe) Tier 1 assesses this property.	no
SSO-only signup, no API-key issuance	activate	success	None found — checked at Tier 1 (unauth probe) (evidence-graded; not yet live-verified by a Tier 2 probe) Tier 1 assesses this property.	no
No Machine Interface	operate	success	None found — checked at Tier 1 (unauth probe) (evidence-graded; not yet live-verified by a Tier 2 probe) Tier 1 assesses this property.	yes

No interrupts found — no evidence penalties. Unassessed properties still contribute a provisional tax.

How we scored this

Confidence: Provisional (0.55) — Based on Tier 0/1 evidence only (passive checks, no live transaction attempt) — treat the number as a triage signal, not a verified outcome.
Machine-Readability sub-score: 62 / 100 (a separate integration-ease signal — it never enters the Interrupt Score or badge).
Some capability stages are not yet probed — shown plainly in the spine above, never as a pass.
Rubric, tiers, confidence model, and badge thresholds →

Machine-readability checks 62 / 100

Four check groups, equal weight: machine interfaces, browsing efficiency, element discoverability, and discovery/agent access. Each check carries an evidence grade (proven / plausible / emerging) — an honesty label that never weights the score. What these mean →

llms.txtemergingFound — tavily.com/llms.txt (18.1 KB, 111 links)
llms-full.txtemergingFound — tavily.com/llms-full.txt (750.4 KB, 918 links)
AGENTS.mdemergingFound — tavily.com/AGENTS.md
A2A agent cardemergingFound — tavily.com/.well-known/agent.json
MCP server (well-known or official registry)plausibleFound — tavily.com/.well-known/mcp.json
OpenAPI/Swagger specplausibleNot provided
Rate-limit headersplausibleNot provided
Structured JSON error responsesplausibleNot provided
OAuth authorization-server metadata (RFC 8414)provenNot provided
API catalog (RFC 9727) (emerging)emergingFound — tavily.com/.well-known/api-catalog
Agent-payment discovery (x402 / UCP) (emerging)emergingNot provided
Lean HTML transfer sizeplausible169 KB raw HTML (threshold 488 KB)
Manageable DOM sizeplausible922 DOM nodes (threshold 1500)
High content-to-markup densityplausible2.5% text/HTML (4390 chars in 169 KB, threshold 2%)
Content readable without JS executionprovenraw HTML holds 107% of rendered text (4390 vs 4111 chars; threshold 40%)
Clean-content alternate (RSS/Atom/feed/markdown)plausibleNot provided
Serves markdown on Accept: text/markdownplausibleNot provided
Interactive elements are semanticplausible115/115 semantic (100%); 0 div/span click targets
Form fields have accessible namesplausible2/2 named (100%)
Inputs carry autocomplete hintsplausible1/2 with autocomplete (50%)
WebMCP tools (modelContext API)emergingNot provided
AI retrieval/search fetchers allowed (robots.txt)provenNot provided
Sitemap (indexability)plausibleFound — tavily.com/sitemap.xml
schema.org JSON-LD in raw HTMLplausible2 valid JSON-LD block(s) in raw (pre-JS) HTML
Content-Signal directives (robots.txt)emergingNot provided
Web Bot Auth key directory (emerging)emergingNot provided
Discovery Link headers on homepage (emerging)emergingrel=api-catalog, service-desc
Pricing visible without loginFound — tavily.com/pricing
robots.txt AI-crawler accessplausibleNot provided
Unauthenticated API error is structured JSONplausibleFound — api.tavily.com/ (HTTP 200)
Unauthenticated API returns auth guidance (401/403 or documented)plausibleNot provided
API exposes rate-limit headersplausibleNot provided
API key obtainable without human interactionplausibleNot checked — API documentation host reachable (https://docs.tavily.com/) — reachability is not evidence of unattended key issuance

Evidence & history

Last probed 2026-10-07 04:35 UTC. The raw JSON is the archival record.

Date	Score	Badge	Rubric version
2026-10-07 04:35 UTC	81	Low-Interrupt (current)	rubric v2026.4
2026-10-07 04:35 UTC	81	Low-Interrupt	rubric v2026.4
2026-09-07 01:52 UTC	81	Low-Interrupt	rubric v2026.4
2026-08-09 23:54 UTC	81	Low-Interrupt	rubric v2026.4
2026-08-09 23:54 UTC	81	Low-Interrupt	rubric v2026.4
2026-08-09 17:13 UTC	81	Low-Interrupt	rubric v2026.4
2026-08-09 07:24 UTC	88	Low-Interrupt	rubric v2026.3
2026-08-09 05:30 UTC	0	Blocked	rubric v2026.3
2026-08-09 05:30 UTC	0	Blocked	rubric v2026.3
2026-08-09 03:14 UTC	88	Low-Interrupt	rubric v2026.3
2026-08-09 01:52 UTC	88	Low-Interrupt	rubric v2026.2
2026-08-09 01:45 UTC	88	Low-Interrupt	rubric v2026.2
2026-08-08 22:13 UTC	100	Low-Interrupt	rubric v2026.1
2026-08-08 22:13 UTC	100	Low-Interrupt	rubric v2026.1

Alternatives in Developer / Data APIs

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