Forage MCP — Web Intelligence & Persistent Knowledge Graph for AI Agents

By Riccardo Minniti / Ernesta Labs | riccardo@ernestalabs.com

Forage is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that gives AI agents real-time web intelligence and a self-accumulating knowledge graph. One connection provides 24 tools and 12 multi-step skills: web search, company data, verified B2B emails, local leads, and a graph that remembers everything your agent has ever discovered.

Built on Apify's scraping infrastructure. Powered by FalkorDB for persistent graph storage.

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Author: Riccardo Minniti
Organization: Ernesta Labs
Contact: riccardo@ernestalabs.com
GitHub: github.com/ErnestaLabs/web-intelligence-mcp
Apify: apify.com/ernesta_labs/forage

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The Knowledge Graph — Your Agent's Memory

Every tool call automatically feeds a private knowledge graph that grows smarter over time. No other MCP server does this.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    FORAGE KNOWLEDGE GRAPH                    │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                             │
│   [Company A] ──── has_domain ────▶ [domain.com]           │
│       │                                │                    │
│       │ works_at                       │ has_email_pattern  │
│       ▼                                ▼                    │
│   [Person B] ◀─── has_title ──── [Email Pattern]           │
│       │                                │                    │
│       │ located_in                     │ verified_emails    │
│       ▼                                ▼                    │
│   [San Francisco]              [john@domain.com]           │
│       │                                │                    │
│       │ operates_in                    │ linkedin           │
│       ▼                                ▼                    │
│   [SaaS Industry]              [LinkedIn Profile]          │
│                                                             │
│   Claims: "Raised Series A in 2024" (confidence: 89%)      │
│   Signals: Hiring spike in Q4 2025 (+45%)                  │
│   Regime: growth                                           │
│                                                             │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

What makes it different

Feature	Forage Graph	Generic RAG/Vector DB
Entity deduplication	✓ SHA-256 identity	✗ Creates duplicates
Relationship tracking	✓ Typed edges (works_at, located_in)	✗ Similarity only
Confidence scoring	✓ Increases with corroboration	✗ Static embeddings
Provenance (claims)	✓ Who said what, when	✗ No source tracking
Time-series signals	✓ Track metrics over time	✗ Snapshot only
Causal inference	✓ Find what drives what	✗ No causality
Regime detection	✓ Normal / stressed / pre-tipping	✗ No state tracking

Graph tools

Tool	What it does	Price
query_knowledge	Search entities by name/type	$0.05
enrich_entity	Full profile + all relationships	$0.08
find_connections	Path between two entities	$0.12
add_claim	Store provenance assertion	$0.05
get_claims	Retrieve claims for entity	$0.05
add_signal	Record time-series data point	$0.05
get_signals	Query metrics over time	$0.05
set_regime	Label entity state	$0.03
get_regime	Check entity state	$0.03
causal_parents	What drives this entity	$0.08
causal_children	What this entity drives	$0.08
causal_path	Highest-weight causal path	$0.15
simulate	Propagate shock/boost through graph	$0.25
get_graph_stats	Entity/relationship counts	Free

The graph is persistent — stored in FalkorDB on our infrastructure. Your agent's research accumulates across sessions. The more you use Forage, the smarter it gets.

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Email Verification — How It Actually Works

We don't just guess email patterns. Each find_emails call runs a 4-step verification pipeline:

Step 1: Pattern Discovery

Scrape the target domain for email patterns (e.g., firstname.lastname@domain.com). Extract from:

• Contact pages, footers, team pages
• Press releases, blog author pages
• WHOIS records, SSL certificates

Step 2: Candidate Generation

Generate candidate emails using discovered patterns + LinkedIn data. Cross-reference with:

• Company employee listings (if public)
• Job postings with contact info
• Conference speaker lists

Step 3: SMTP Verification

For each candidate, we perform an SMTP handshake check:

• Connect to the domain's mail server
• Verify the recipient exists (RCPT TO)
• Detect catch-all domains (score penalty)
• Detect mailboxes that accept then bounce (honeypots)

Step 4: Confidence Scoring

Each email gets a confidence score (0-100) based on:

Signal	Weight	Example
SMTP accept	40%	Mail server accepted RCPT TO
Pattern match	25%	Matches known company format
LinkedIn match	20%	Name matches LinkedIn profile
Source corroboration	15%	Found on multiple public sources

Return format:

{
  "email": "sarah.chen@stripe.com",
  "name": "Sarah Chen",
  "title": "VP of Sales",
  "seniority": "vp",
  "department": "sales",
  "linkedin": "linkedin.com/in/sarahchen",
  "confidence": 94,
  "verified": true,
  "verification_steps": ["smtp_accepted", "linkedin_match", "pattern_match"]
}

What "verified" means

• Confidence 90-100: SMTP accepted + LinkedIn match + multiple sources. High deliverability.
• Confidence 70-89: SMTP accepted or strong pattern match. Good for outreach.
• Confidence 50-69: Pattern-based with partial verification. Use with caution.
• Below 50: Not returned (filtered out).

This is not a simple mailserver check. It's a multi-source corroboration pipeline that other MCP servers don't offer.

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Web Intelligence Tools

Core Tools

Tool	What it does	Price	Why this price
search_web	Multi-source search, deduplicated, ranked	$0.03	Aggregates Brave, Bing, DuckDuckGo + dedup + rank. Cheaper than calling each API separately ($0.03 total vs $0.06+ if you called 2 search APIs)
scrape_page	Extract clean markdown from any URL	$0.07	Includes proxy rotation, JavaScript rendering, anti-bot bypass
get_company_info	Domain → full company profile	$0.08	Aggregates 5+ data sources: website, LinkedIn, Crunchbase patterns, social profiles
find_emails	Verified B2B emails with LinkedIn	$0.10	4-step pipeline above
find_local_leads	Local businesses by niche + location	$0.15	Google Maps + enrichment + phone/website extraction
find_leads	B2B leads by title/industry/location	$0.25/100 leads	That's $0.0025 per lead. Try finding 100 leads manually.

Skills (Multi-Step Workflows)

Skills chain multiple tools into one call, returning ready-to-use intelligence packages:

Skill	Price	Returns
skill_company_dossier	$0.50	Full company profile + 10 contacts with emails
skill_prospect_company	$0.75	15 decision makers sorted by seniority + emails
skill_outbound_list	$3.50	100 verified leads ready for CRM import
skill_local_market_map	$0.80	Up to 60 local businesses with contact info
skill_decision_maker_finder	$1.00	20 decision makers by seniority tier
skill_competitor_intel	$0.80	Pricing, features, reviews, positioning
skill_competitor_ads	$0.65	Active ad copy, landing pages, platforms
skill_job_signals	$0.55	Hiring trends, open roles, expansion signals
skill_tech_stack	$0.45	Technologies used with confidence scores
skill_funding_intel	$0.70	Funding rounds, investors, valuation estimates
skill_social_proof	$0.55	Reviews, ratings, testimonials aggregated
skill_market_map	$1.20	Complete competitor landscape for a market

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Why Forage over other MCP search tools?

Capability	Forage	Brave Search MCP	Apify MCP	AgentQL
Web search	✓	✓	✗	✗
Page scraping	✓	✗	✓	✓
Email discovery	✓ (4-step verified)	✗	✗	✗
B2B leads	✓	✗	Partial	✗
Company intelligence	✓	✗	Partial	✗
Local businesses	✓	✗	✓	✗
Persistent knowledge graph	✓	✗	✗	✗
Provenance & claims	✓	✗	✗	✗
Causal analysis	✓	✗	✗	✗
Time-series signals	✓	✗	✗	✗
Multi-step skills	✓ (12 skills)	✗	✗	✗
Actor gateway (1000+)	✓	✗	✓	✗

The knowledge graph is the differentiator. Other tools give you data. Forage gives you accumulated intelligence. Every search, every email lookup, every company profile feeds your private graph. After a week of use, your agent knows more about your market than any single search ever could.

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Quick Start

1. Get Your API Token

Go to Apify Console → Settings → Integrations and copy your Personal API Token.

2. Connect to Claude / Cursor / n8n

Claude Desktop (%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "forage": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y", "@anthropic/mcp-proxy",
        "https://ernesta-labs--forage.apify.actor/mcp/sse"
      ],
      "env": {
        "APIFY_API_TOKEN": "YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor / Windsurf:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "forage": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y", "@anthropic/mcp-proxy",
        "https://ernesta-labs--forage.apify.actor/mcp/sse"
      ],
      "env": {
        "APIFY_API_TOKEN": "YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

n8n / LangGraph / Custom: Connect to the SSE endpoint at https://ernesta-labs--forage.apify.actor/mcp/sse with your Apify token in the Authorization header.

3. System Prompt (Optional)

Add to your agent's system prompt:

When you need live web data, company info, verified emails, or lead lists, use Forage tools. Each call costs money (shown in responses), so batch operations when possible. Your knowledge graph persists across sessions — check it first before making new web calls.

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Examples

Find 20 HVAC leads in Dallas

Call: find_leads
Params: { "industry": "HVAC", "location": "Dallas, TX", "limit": 20 }
Returns: 20 companies with name, phone, website, email, address
Cost: $0.05

Get decision makers at a prospect

Call: skill_prospect_company
Params: { "domain": "stripe.com" }
Returns: 15 decision makers with title, email, LinkedIn, seniority
Cost: $0.75

Build a local market map

Call: skill_local_market_map
Params: { "business_type": "dentist", "location": "London, UK" }
Returns: 60 dentists with address, phone, website, rating, reviews
Cost: $0.80

Track a company's hiring over time

Call: add_signal
Params: { "entity": "Acme Corp", "metric": "job_postings", "value": 45 }
... repeat weekly ...
Call: get_signals
Params: { "entity": "Acme Corp", "metric": "job_postings" }
Returns: Time-series of job postings — hiring trend visible

Find who influenced a deal

Call: find_connections
Params: { "from": "Your Company", "to": "Acme Corp" }
Returns: Path through shared connections, events, technologies

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Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    YOUR AI AGENT (Claude, Cursor, n8n)      │
└─────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┘
                          │ MCP Protocol
                          ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    FORAGE MCP SERVER (Apify)                 │
│  ┌────────────┐  ┌────────────┐  ┌──────────────────────┐  │
│  │ Web Search │  │   Scraper  │  │  Email Discovery     │  │
│  │ (3 engines)│  │ (rendered) │  │  (4-step pipeline)   │  │
│  └─────┬──────┘  └─────┬──────┘  └──────────┬───────────┘  │
│        └───────────────┼────────────────────┘              │
│                        ▼                                    │
│              ┌─────────────────┐                            │
│              │  Graph Client   │                            │
│              └────────┬────────┘                            │
└───────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┘
                        │ HTTPS
                        ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                FORAGE GRAPH API (Railway)                    │
│  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐  │
│  │              FalkorDB (Redis-compatible)              │  │
│  │  Entities ──── RELATES ────▶ Entities                │  │
│  │  Claims (provenance)                                  │  │
│  │  Signals (time-series)                                │  │
│  │  Regimes (state tracking)                             │  │
│  └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

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Pricing

Pay per tool call. No subscription. No minimum. Every response includes the cost.

Your Apify spend	Your Forage cost	Ratio
$1	~$0.75	25% markup
$10	~$7.50	25% markup
$100	~$75	25% markup

The 25% markup covers: proxy infrastructure, knowledge graph storage, email verification pipeline, multi-engine search aggregation, and ongoing maintenance.

Free trial: New Apify accounts get $5 platform credit. Try Forage risk-free.

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Limitations

• Some sites block scraping — we use proxies + JS rendering, but some sites (LinkedIn, closed social networks) are protected
• Email accuracy ≠ 100% — confidence scores reflect real verification, but email addresses can change
• Knowledge graph is persistent but not portable — data lives on our FalkorDB instance (not exported yet)
• Rate limits — Apify enforces per-account limits; Forage doesn't add extra limits on top

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Support & Links

• Author: Riccardo Minniti / Ernesta Labs
• Email: riccardo@ernestalabs.com
• GitHub: github.com/ErnestaLabs/web-intelligence-mcp
• Issues: github.com/ErnestaLabs/web-intelligence-mcp/issues
• Apify Actor: apify.com/ernesta_labs/forage
• Documentation: See QUICKSTART.md and EXAMPLES.md

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License

MIT License — Copyright (c) 2026 Riccardo Minniti / Ernesta Labs