Docs/Skills/Bot Detection Skill

Bot Detection Skill

Detect if a user agent belongs to a bot or crawler

OperationalCredits 10 per callp50 116msNetworking

Overview

A bot detection API for crawlers and scrapers. Bot Detector uses a comprehensive database of known bot and crawler user agent patterns to identify automated traffic, categorizing detected bots into types like search engines, social media crawlers, SEO tools, and monitoring services. It also applies list-free heuristics to flag automated clients the database misses — missing user agents and non-browser clients such as curl and scripts — and returns a composite risk score.

Live Test Bot Detection Skill Skill →

The tool

Once your client is connected to the VerveKit server, this appears in its tool list as BotDetectionSkill. It is read-only and open-world — it fetches and never mutates anything on your side — so most clients call it without asking you to confirm.

Tool call
{
  "name": "BotDetectionSkill",
  "arguments": {
    "ua": "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)"
  }
}

You do not name the tool yourself; the model picks it. Asking about Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html) in the terms this skill covers is enough for it to reach for BotDetectionSkill on its own — naming it explicitly also works, and is the way to force the call.

Connecting

One server URL covers every skill in the catalog, including this one. Authorization is OAuth: the client opens a browser once, and there is no key to paste into a config file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vervekit": {
      "url": "https://api.vervekit.com/v1/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Per-client setup — Claude, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT — is on the MCP setup page.

Arguments

These are the properties on the tool's inputSchema, so a well-behaved client validates them before the call is made. Premium arguments are accepted on every plan but only take effect on plans that include them.

ArgumentTypeDescription
uaRequiredstringThe user agent string to analyze (URL encoded)
ipOptionalstringOptional IP the request came from. When the user agent claims to be a Google, Bing, OpenAI or Apple crawler, it is checked against that operator's published IP ranges
ip

What the model gets back

The result carries a structuredContent object matching the tool's declared outputSchema, so a client reads fields without parsing prose. status is "ok" and error is null on success; a null field means the value was not available for that input, not that the call failed.

Result
{
  "status": "ok",
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "userAgent": "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)",
    "isBot": true,
    "bot": {
      "name": "Googlebot",
      "category": "search_engine",
      "url": "http://www.google.com/bot.html",
      "reputation": "trusted",
      "shouldBlock": false
    },
    "isAutomated": true,
    "verified": true,
    "riskScore": 0,
    "riskLevel": "low"
  }
}

Response fields

Paths are relative to data. Premium fields are absent rather than zeroed on plans that do not include them, so check for presence instead of comparing to 0.

FieldTypeExampleDescription
userAgentstringGooglebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)The analyzed user agent string provided in the request
isBotbooleantrueWhether the user agent belongs to a known bot or crawler
botPremiumobject{…}Detailed bot information including name, category, and reputation
bot.namePremiumstringGooglebotName of the detected bot or crawler
bot.categoryPremiumstringsearch_engineCategory of bot: search_engine, social_media, monitoring, seo_tool, scraper, other
bot.urlPremiumstringhttp://www.google.com/bot.htmlOfficial URL or documentation link for the bot
bot.reputationPremiumstringtrustedTrust level: trusted (search engines, social), neutral (monitoring, SEO), malicious (scrapers, spam), or unknown
bot.shouldBlockPremiumbooleanfalseRecommendation whether to block this bot based on category and reputation
isAutomatedPremiumbooleantrueHeuristic signal that the traffic is automated — true for known bots, missing user agents, and clients that do not present as a standard browser (e.g. curl, scripts, headless tooling). Catches automated clients not in the bot database
verifiedPremiumbooleantrueWhether a claimed Google, Bing, OpenAI or Apple crawler really comes from that operator's published IP ranges (false = spoofed). Null when no ip is given or the user agent claims no verifiable crawler
riskScorePremiumnumber0Composite 0-100 risk score combining bot reputation, block recommendation and automation heuristics (higher is riskier)
riskLevelPremiumstringlowRisk band derived from the score: low, medium or high

Failure modes

Errors come back as tool errors carrying a sentence the model can act on, not a bare status code. Error handling covers the full list.

StatusWhat it means
400 / 422The arguments did not validate. The message names the offending one.
401The OAuth session is invalid or expired — reconnect the server.
403Blocked by a key restriction or an IP allow-list. Never a bad identity.
404This skill is not part of VerveKit. Check the catalog.
429Out of credits, or a brief rate limit. The message tells them apart.

A call costs 10 credits each time the tool actually runs; a model that reasons about the tool without calling it costs nothing.

Use cases

Analytics Filtering
Exclude bot traffic from your analytics to get accurate visitor metrics and user behavior data
Access Control
Implement different behavior for bots vs real users, such as rate limiting or content restrictions
Security Monitoring
Identify potentially malicious crawlers and scrapers attempting to access your content
SEO Insights
Track which search engine bots are crawling your site and how frequently

Other ways to use Bot Detection Skill

Set up Bot Detection Skill on VerveKit, or reach the same source a different way. Your VerveKit account and credits work on all of them — one key, one balance.

Call it as a REST APIOne HTTPS endpoint and an x-api-key header, with SDKs for Node, Python and .NET.APIVerve →Reference →
Google Sheets or ExcelA =VERVE() formula fills a column — no script, no export, recalculates in place.VerveSheets →Reference →
Ground an agent on itA cited, machine-checkable fact your model can't produce on its own.VerveContext →Reference →

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