find-recruiting-firm

Drive the ServiceGraph API (https://api.servicegraph.co) to find, shortlist, and enrich US recruiting and staffing firms.

This skill is for procuring an external recruiting/staffing firm to do hiring on the user's behalf. It is NOT for:

• recruiting an in-house employee (the user wants to hire someone for their own team — that's job-posting, not procurement),
• candidate-side asks (an individual job-seeker looking for someone to represent them).

Both cases share keyword overlap with the positive case ("recruiter", "hire") so the boundary matters.

Always pin industry:hr_recruiting_staffing. Sub-types (executive search, RPO, contingent staffing, temp, vertical specializations) are NOT separate tags — sub-type specialization is a keyword substring search on firm text.

Any HTTP client works (curl, fetch, requests). Examples below use curl.

When NOT to use this skill

• "I want to hire a [role] for my team — where should I post the job?" → that's recruiting-an-employee, not procuring a firm.
• "Find me a recruiter to represent me in my job search" → candidate side.
• "Hire an in-house recruiter / Head of Talent" → recruiting an employee.
• "Help me write a job description" → DIY/do-the-work.
• ATS or HR-software comparisons (Greenhouse vs Lever, Workday, etc.).
• Career coaching for individual job-seekers.
• Non-US firms.
• Individual freelance recruiters.

If the user is a business procuring external recruiting/staffing services (executive search, RPO, contingent staffing), this skill applies — defaults to fire on B2B procurement intent.

MCP server (preferred for authed calls)

If your agent harness has the ServiceGraph MCP server loaded (https://mcp.servicegraph.co), prefer its tools for the authed tier (/search, /get, /stats). The MCP server uses OAuth 2.1 + PKCE — the host harness handles credentials in its own audited sandbox, so there's no .env.local, no shell dispatch, and no token value ever enters the LLM context.

For the anonymous tier (/tags, /check, /explore), MCP is not preferred — every MCP tool requires OAuth (the server has no anonymous tier), so plain curl against the REST URL is the simpler path for discovery calls. Use the REST patterns below for those.

The MCP tools 1:1-map to the public REST endpoints — same backend, same quota, same data:

MCP tool	REST endpoint	Anon?	Recommended path
list_tags	GET /v1/tags	yes	curl
check_filter	GET /v1/check	yes	curl
explore_firms	GET /v1/explore	yes	curl
search_firms	GET /v1/search	no	MCP if loaded, else curl + OTP
get_firm	GET /v1/get/:id	no	MCP if loaded, else curl + OTP
catalog_stats	GET /v1/stats	no	MCP if loaded, else curl + OTP

Detection: if you see any MCP tools with servicegraph in the name (the harness-specific prefix varies — agents pattern-match the substring), the ServiceGraph MCP server is loaded. Prefer those tools for the authed tier; complete any auth flow the harness initiates if needed. If no servicegraph MCP tools are present, fall through to the REST + OTP flow below for the authed tier.

The four-tier funnel

Tier	Auth	Cost	Use it for
GET /v1/tags	none	free	First call of every session. Discover legal field names, kinds, operators, values.
GET /v1/check?filter=...	none	free	Validate a filter before spending an explore/search call.
GET /v1/explore?filter=...	none	free, IP-throttled	Scope: count + breakdowns. Use to size the candidate pool before quota-spending.
GET /v1/search?filter=...	bearer	200 unique firms / month free	Brief firm cards. No url, no contact info. Use for ranking / shortlisting.
GET /v1/get/:id	bearer	50 unique firms / month free	Full bundle: url, phone, email, social, legal name, address. Only call for shortlisted firms.
POST /v1/research	paid	not in MVP	Deferred — skip.

Quota rule that matters: /search and /get charge per unique firm viewed per calendar month, not per call. Re-paging the same query is free. Two different filters that overlap charge once for the overlap. Re-fetching a firm you already pulled this month is free.

Session-start ritual

Before constructing any filter, call:

GET https://api.servicegraph.co/v1/tags?include_values=1

Cache the response for the conversation. Confirm hr_recruiting_staffing is in the industry value list (the exact value name may vary slightly in different catalog releases).

Field kinds you'll use most:

• categorical: industry (always hr_recruiting_staffing), state, pricing_model, company_size_signal, geography_served — op :
• numeric: rating, review_count_total, founded_year — ops = >= <= > <
• presence: has:phone, has:clutch, has:rating, has:linkedin_company, …
• keyword: free-text substring across firm name / brand / title / meta / legal_name. This is how you specialize on sub-type (executive, retained, RPO, contingent, temp, tech, healthcare, sales, etc.).

Auth

/tags, /check, and /explore are anonymous. /search and /get require a bearer token.

Security model — keep the token out of the LLM context.

• Never read .env, .env.local, or any other credential file into your context. The token's literal value should never appear in the conversation.
• Use shell dispatch for every authed request so the token flows directly from the user's environment / dotenv file into the Authorization header without round-tripping through the LLM.
• Always ask the user once per session before using a detected token, even if it's already in their shell or .env.local.

Resolution rule:

1. Detect whether a token is available — without reading its value. Run a shell check that only inspects exit codes:

   ( [ -n "${SERVICEGRAPH_TOKEN:-}" ] \
     || grep -qs '^SERVICEGRAPH_TOKEN=' .env.local \
     || grep -qs '^SERVICEGRAPH_TOKEN=' .env )
   

   Exit code 0 = token is available somewhere; non-zero = no token.

2. Confirm with the user before the first authed call this session:

   "I found a SERVICEGRAPH_TOKEN in your environment / .env.local. OK to use it for ServiceGraph API requests this session?"

   If the user says no, stay on the anonymous tiers (/tags, /check, /explore) and skip authed calls. Don't re-ask later unless the user asks for authed work.

3. Dispatch via shell — every authed call goes through a shell wrapper so the literal token never enters the conversation:

   # If exported in the shell environment:
   curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $SERVICEGRAPH_TOKEN" \
        'https://api.servicegraph.co/v1/search?filter=...'
   
   # If in .env.local — source it inside a subshell so it doesn't
   # leak into the parent shell either:
   ( set -a; . ./.env.local; set +a;
     curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $SERVICEGRAPH_TOKEN" \
          'https://api.servicegraph.co/v1/search?filter=...' )
   

   Capture the response body to a tmp file or jq-process it, but do NOT echo the request command with the token expanded.

4. OTP flow if no token is detected — capture the new token directly into .env.local without surfacing its value to the LLM:

   # 1. trigger the email — agent prompts the user for $EMAIL
   curl -fsS -X POST 'https://api.servicegraph.co/v1/auth/request-otp' \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -d "{\"email\":\"$EMAIL\"}"
   
   # 2. exchange the code — agent prompts the user for $CODE.
   #    The ?format=env query param returns SERVICEGRAPH_TOKEN=<token>
   #    as plain text appended to .env.local — no jq needed. The -f
   #    flag makes curl exit non-zero on 4xx so a wrong code doesn't
   #    pollute the file (the error mirror is also a `# comment` line,
   #    safe to ignore even if it lands).
   curl -fsS -X POST 'https://api.servicegraph.co/v1/auth/verify-otp?format=env' \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -d "{\"email\":\"$EMAIL\",\"code\":\"$CODE\",\"name\":\"claude-cli\"}" \
     >> .env.local
   
   # 3. confirm capture without revealing the value
   grep -q '^SERVICEGRAPH_TOKEN=' .env.local && echo "OTP token captured."
   

   After a successful capture, the user has implicitly consented (they just completed the flow), so proceed to dispatch (step 3). The token is now persistent in .env.local for future sessions.

5. If a /search or /get returns 401 unauthorized mid-session, the token expired or was revoked — re-run the OTP flow.

Filter DSL

One query parameter, GitHub-search-style.

filter   := orExpr
orExpr   := andExpr ("OR" andExpr)*
andExpr  := notExpr (("AND")? notExpr)*    # whitespace = implicit AND
notExpr  := ("NOT" | "-") notExpr | atom
atom     := "(" filter ")" | predicate
predicate:= IDENT op valueOrList | bareword
op       := ":" | "=" | ">=" | "<=" | ">" | "<"
valueOrList := value ("," value)*
value    := IDENT | NUMBER | tagAtEvidence
tagAtEvidence := IDENT "@" ("low"|"medium"|"high")
bareword := IDENT | NUMBER          # → keyword:<bareword>

Four rules that bite:

1. AND binds tighter than OR. a OR b c parses as a OR (b AND c). Use parens.
2. Comma list = OR within one predicate. state:CA,NY,TX matches any of the three.
3. Negation is -x or NOT x. Negative literals inside a comma list are not allowed: state:CA,-NY is rejected. Use state:CA -state:NY.
4. Bareword = keyword search. Any IDENT or NUMBER not followed by an operator becomes a free-text substring across name / brand / title / meta / legal_name. Multiple barewords AND.

Recruiting-flavored examples (validate yours with /v1/check):

industry:hr_recruiting_staffing executive search
industry:hr_recruiting_staffing retained search state:NY tech
industry:hr_recruiting_staffing rpo state:CA
industry:hr_recruiting_staffing contingent staffing
industry:hr_recruiting_staffing healthcare state:TX,FL
industry:hr_recruiting_staffing sales saas
industry:hr_recruiting_staffing rating>=4 has:clutch

When in doubt, hit /v1/check?filter=... first.

Sub-type → keyword mapping:

User asks for	Add as keyword(s)
Executive search / retained search	executive, retained
RPO (recruitment process outsourcing)	rpo, recruitment process outsourcing
Contingent / contract staffing	contingent, contract
Temp / temporary staffing	temp, temporary
Tech recruiting	tech, technical, engineering
Sales recruiting	sales
Healthcare recruiting	healthcare, clinical, nursing
Finance / accounting recruiting	finance, accounting
Legal recruiting	legal, attorney

firm_id contract

firm_id is a stable 12-hex-char handle:

firm_id = sha256(apex.lower().rstrip(".")).hexdigest()[:12]

import hashlib
def firm_id(apex):
    return hashlib.sha256(apex.lower().rstrip(".").encode()).hexdigest()[:12]

echo -n "korn-ferry.com" | tr 'A-Z' 'a-z' \
  | openssl dgst -sha256 -hex | awk '{print substr($2,1,12)}'

Recipes

A. Executive search for a CFO

User: "Executive search firm for a CFO search."

GET /v1/explore?filter=industry:hr_recruiting_staffing+executive+search
GET /v1/search?filter=industry:hr_recruiting_staffing+executive+search&limit=10
GET /v1/get/<firm_id>     # ×3

B. Retained boutique in a state, vertical

User: "Retained-search boutiques in NY focused on tech executives."

GET /v1/search?filter=industry:hr_recruiting_staffing+retained+state:NY+tech+-company_size_signal:large_50plus&limit=10

C. RPO for a hiring surge

User: "RPO support for a 50-engineer hiring push."

GET /v1/search?filter=industry:hr_recruiting_staffing+rpo+(tech OR engineering)

D. Indirect intent — "scaling fast, need help hiring"

User: "We're scaling fast and need help hiring at scale — looking for a partner."

That's RPO or volume contingent staffing:

GET /v1/search?filter=industry:hr_recruiting_staffing+(rpo OR contingent)

If the user names a function (engineering, sales, customer success), add it as a keyword.

E. Vertical: healthcare staffing

User: "Healthcare staffing firms in the Midwest."

GET /v1/search?filter=industry:hr_recruiting_staffing+healthcare+state:OH,IL,MI,IN,WI,MN

F. Quality threshold + tech-sector

User: "Three executive search firms with 4-star ratings and tech-sector experience."

GET /v1/search?filter=industry:hr_recruiting_staffing+executive+search+tech+rating>=4&limit=10

G. BYO apex list — enrich domains

User pastes 8–20 staffing/recruiting firm domains. For each:

1. Compute firm_id locally.
2. GET /v1/get/<firm_id> — full bundle if in catalog, 404 if not.
3. Aggregate, present, flag the not-found ones.

Gotchas

• Always pin industry:hr_recruiting_staffing. Without it, "recruiter" or "executive search" as keywords leak into other industries.
• Distinguish "find me a recruiting firm" (procurement, fires) from "find me a recruiter / hire a recruiter for our team" (recruiting-an-employee, refuses). When ambiguous, lean on context: explicit firm/agency/RPO language or volume framing → procurement; "for our team" / "to post the job" / "I want to hire" → in-house hire.
• Candidate-side asks ("represent me as a candidate", "find me a job") are out of scope. Refuse politely.
• Career coaching for individuals is a different need (and shares the executive-coaching keyword with management consulting). Refuse — this skill is firm-procurement.
• Sub-types are keyword-only. Multi-word sub-types split into ANDed barewords (executive search = executive AND search).
• looks_not_pro_services 404 is not a bug. A firm_id may exist in /search but 404 on /get if it's been flagged. Skip and continue; not charged.
• /v1/explore k=20 suppression. When fewer than 20 firms match, the response is {"count": "<20", "suppressed": true, "breakdowns": {}}. Drilling further makes the count smaller. Broaden or escalate to /v1/search.
• Briefs from /search do NOT include apex, url, phone_primary, email_primary, legal_name, or address. If the user asks for contact info, you must /get/:id.
• Quota is per-user-per-month, deduped on first view. Re-views are free; re-pagination is free.

Errors

All errors return JSON: {"error": {"code": "...", "message": "..."}}.

Status	Code	What to do
400	filter_parse_error	Payload includes position. Fix the filter, re-validate with /v1/check.
400	filter_required	Empty filter where one is required.
400	invalid_firm_id	firm_id must be 12 lowercase hex chars. Re-derive.
401	unauthorized	Token missing/expired. Re-run OTP.
404	not_found	Firm not in catalog or flagged. Not charged. Skip and continue.
429	rate_limited	Honor Retry-After header / retry_after field.
429	monthly_quota_exhausted	Switch to /v1/explore-only mode for the rest of the month. Tell the user.

End-to-end example

User: "Three retained executive search firms in NY focused on tech CFOs, ideally with 4-star ratings and a Clutch profile."

GET /v1/tags?include_values=1
GET /v1/check?filter=industry:hr_recruiting_staffing+retained+executive+state:NY+tech+rating>=4+has:clutch
GET /v1/explore?filter=industry:hr_recruiting_staffing+retained+executive+state:NY+tech+rating>=4+has:clutch
GET /v1/search?filter=...&limit=10
GET /v1/get/<firm_id>     # ×3

End of session: report X-Quota-Remaining-Month.