hermes-web-tools

The web_search not configured error is usually caused by a missing ddgs package in the Hermes venv, not missing Firecrawl credits. Bootstrap pip with ensurepip, then run pip install ddgs using the venv's python.exe to restore free DuckDuckGo search.

Run the venv python.exe with -m ensurepip --upgrade to bootstrap pip, then -m pip install ddgs, and verify with -c "import ddgs". Use the full path ending in Scripts/python.exe and do not strip the .exe extension.

uv pip install --python fails because uv misdetects the Hermes venv and reports no virtual environment found. Use the venv's python.exe with -m pip directly after bootstrapping pip via ensurepip instead.

No, web_search uses the ddgs DuckDuckGo scraper backend which requires no API key or credits. Only web_extract is Firecrawl-backed and needs paid credits unless you change extract_backend to ddgs in config.yaml.

Yes, set extract_backend to ddgs in the Hermes profile config.yaml so extraction uses the free DuckDuckGo-backed fetch and summarize path. Otherwise web_extract keeps failing without Firecrawl credits even after the ddgs search fix.