AI agents
Agents and the web
Agents do not search the web. They read the pages you link, through the Engine on your computer. Set Off, Ask or On in Hub > Settings > Agents and the web, and see what is read and sent.
On this page
Agents do not search the web. When they need something the model may not know, such as a new version or an error message, they ask you for a link and read that page. Your computer reads the page, not Jennefer's servers.
Why agents ask for a link#
A model only knows what it learned before its training ended. Agents are told today's date and that their knowledge may be out of date. They should not change a version you asked for because they have not heard of it. Instead they check your computer, for example the installed SDKs, or ask you for a link with a question in the chat.
The web access setting#
Open Hub > Settings > Agents and the web and pick Web access. The setting is kept by the Engine and used by every app that reads pages.
| Setting | What agents do |
|---|---|
| Off | Agents never read web pages. They work only from your files and the model's knowledge. |
| Ask (default) | Links you give are read right away. Agents ask before reading any other page. |
| On | Agents read pages without asking. Every page still shows in the task log. |
While the Engine is asleep, the row shows Engine asleep instead of the choices. It comes back when the Engine wakes.
Links you write yourself#
With Ask, a link counts as yours when you wrote it in the request, or in your answer to an agent's question. Agents read those pages without a question. Answers to approval cards and passwords never count.
- The match is exact. A page with a different address, for example the same link with extra text after
?, asks first. - Any other page shows an approval card in the IDE, for example Coder wants to read a web page. Allow it? with Page: and the address. The CLI and CLI+ ask in the terminal.
- Approve all for this run lets agents read other pages until the run ends. See Approvals and safety.
- Agents are told not to go from page to page on their own.
Which apps read pages#
| App | Web pages |
|---|---|
| IDE | Yes, with this setting. |
| CLI and CLI+ | Yes, with this setting. |
| Cloud and Workshop | No. Their agents work in a sandbox or a builder that does not read pages. |
| Hangar | Bots read only the pages and addresses in their flight plan. See Hangar. |
| Premium | No. Premium works offline. |
What is read and sent#
- Who downloads the page: the Engine on your computer. The request carries no cookies or sign-ins from your browser.
- What is blocked: addresses on your own computer or local network (for example
localhost,192.168.x.xand.localnames), addresses that are nothttporhttps, and redirects to any of those. This stops a page from steering an agent at your router or other devices. - What the agent gets: the page as plain text, marked as untrusted web content. Agents use it as reference and never follow instructions in it.
- Where the text goes: like a file an agent reads, it passes through Jennefer's servers in transit and goes to the model this session uses. With a model on this computer, the model runs locally. See Privacy and security.
- What stays the same: commands, deletes and other actions still ask for your approval after a page is read. Text from a page cannot approve anything.
Limits#
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Time to load a page | 15 seconds |
| Download size | 2 MB |
| Text the agent gets | About 40,000 characters. A longer page is cut and the agent is told. |
| Redirects | 5, each one checked |
| Page types | Text pages: HTML, plain text, Markdown, JSON and XML. No PDFs, images or videos. |
FAQ#
Can agents search Google or another search engine?
No. Agents never search. Give them the link to the page you mean.
Does Jennefer's server download the page?
No. The Engine on your computer downloads it. Only the text the agent uses passes through Jennefer's servers while the run works.
Can an agent read a page on my local network, such as a dev server?
No. Local and private addresses are always blocked. To show an agent your running app, let it read the files or run a command such as a test.
Where do I see which pages were read?
Every page an agent reads shows in the run's log, also with On.
The agent says the page was empty or short. Why?
The Engine reads the page's text and does not run its scripts or sign in. Pages that need a sign-in or are built by scripts can come back short or empty. Paste the text into the chat instead, or save it in a file and @ mention it.