find-marketing-agency

Drive the ServiceGraph API (https://api.servicegraph.co) to find, shortlist, and enrich US marketing agencies. The catalog has tens of thousands of US marketing firms tagged across 26 service sub-tags including branding, content-marketing, ppc, social-media-marketing, email-marketing, web-design, video-production, inbound-marketing, marketing-strategy, and conversion-optimization. (Note: the catalog has no performance-marketing or demand-gen / demand-generation tag — those user-phrasings map to inbound-marketing / marketing-strategy / conversion-optimization plus a keyword fallback.)

Always pin industry:marketing_agency in the filter. This skill exists to do that automatically — the user shouldn't have to think about catalog taxonomy.

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

Sibling skills — defer when scope is narrow

If the user's ask is strictly one of the following, defer to the dedicated skill:

• Strictly SEO/search-ranking work → find-seo-agency
• Strictly web/app/software development → find-web-developer / find-software-developer

If the user wants a marketing agency that also does SEO or web work as part of a broader engagement, this skill is correct — pin industry:marketing_agency and add the relevant service_provided: tags.

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 the marketing-relevant service tags exist in the returned service_provided taxonomy (branding, content-marketing, ppc, social-media-marketing, email-marketing, video-production, inbound-marketing, marketing-strategy, conversion-optimization, etc.) — names drift, and the parser silently accepts unknown tags and returns zero results. Common mis-mappings: there is no performance-marketing, demand-gen, or demand-generation tag — use inbound-marketing / marketing-strategy / conversion-optimization plus a keyword fallback.

Field kinds you'll use most:

• categorical: industry (always marketing_agency), state, pricing_model, company_size_signal, geography_served — op :
• tag_set_with_evidence: service_provided — Map<tag, evidence∈{low,medium,high}>. Op : with optional @evidence
• 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. Any bareword in the filter becomes a keyword.

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.

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

industry:marketing_agency service_provided:branding@high
industry:marketing_agency service_provided:ppc service_provided:content-marketing
industry:marketing_agency state:CA,NY -company_size_signal:solo
industry:marketing_agency (service_provided:inbound-marketing@high OR service_provided:marketing-strategy@high)
b2b industry:marketing_agency service_provided:content-marketing@high
industry:marketing_agency rating>=4 review_count_total>=20 has:clutch
industry:marketing_agency NOT (service_provided:seo OR service_provided:web-development)

When in doubt about whether a filter parses, hit /v1/check?filter=... first — it's free and returns the canonical normalized form.

firm_id contract

firm_id is a stable 12-hex-char handle:

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

apex is the registered domain (ogilvy.com, not www.ogilvy.com/about). Anyone with an apex list can compute firm_ids locally and call /v1/get/:id directly — no /search needed for BYO enrichment.

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

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

Recipes

A. Branding agency in a state

User: "Three B2B branding agencies in California for a Series-A SaaS company."

GET /v1/explore?filter=industry:marketing_agency+state:CA+service_provided:branding@high
# → pool size + breakdowns

GET /v1/search?filter=industry:marketing_agency+state:CA+service_provided:branding@high&limit=10
# → 10 brief cards; user picks 3

GET /v1/get/<firm_id>     # ×3
# → urls, phones, emails for outreach

B. PPC + ecommerce vertical

User: "PPC shop that specializes in ecommerce."

The "ecommerce" qualifier is keyword-extracted from firm text since client-vertical isn't a structured facet:

GET /v1/search?filter=industry:marketing_agency+service_provided:ppc+ecommerce&limit=10

C. Multi-tag intersection — content + email + B2B vertical

User: "Content marketing partner for a SaaS launch — should also do email."

GET /v1/search?filter=industry:marketing_agency+service_provided:content-marketing@high+service_provided:email-marketing+saas

D. Performance / demand-gen (indirect intent)

User: "Someone to run our quarterly demand-gen campaigns and own the funnel."

The catalog has no performance-marketing / demand-gen / demand-generation tags — that user-phrasing maps to inbound-marketing, marketing-strategy, or conversion-optimization, plus a keyword fallback for the user's exact wording:

GET /v1/search?filter=industry:marketing_agency+(service_provided:inbound-marketing@high OR service_provided:marketing-strategy@high OR service_provided:conversion-optimization@high)+(demand OR funnel)

If breakdowns come back thin, drop the @high evidence qualifier or fall back to pure keyword: demand industry:marketing_agency.

E. Quality threshold (third-party signals)

User: "Compare three social media agencies that have worked with Fortune 500 — high evidence."

GET /v1/search?filter=industry:marketing_agency+service_provided:social-media-marketing@high+rating>=4+review_count_total>=20+has:clutch&limit=10

fortune 500 is hard to filter structurally; surface to the user in the brief cards and let them pick from there, or add as a keyword (industry:marketing_agency service_provided:social-media-marketing@high fortune).

F. Video production

User: "Video production studio for a 90-second product launch film, NYC or LA."

GET /v1/search?filter=industry:marketing_agency+service_provided:video-production+state:NY,CA

The catalog uses one state per firm based on HQ; if the user wants NYC specifically, use state:NY and surface the city to the user from the /get bundle.

G. BYO apex list — enrich domains the user already has

User pastes 8–20 domains. For each:

1. Compute firm_id locally (see contract above).
2. GET /v1/get/<firm_id> — full bundle if in catalog, 404 (not charged) if not.
3. Aggregate, present, flag the not-found ones to the user.

Useful for confirming whether a list of domains is actually in the US marketing-agency catalog and pulling contact info in one pass.

Gotchas

• Always pin industry:marketing_agency. Without it, service_provided:branding would match design firms, IT services, and others that also have branding tags. The industry pin is what makes this skill the marketing-agency skill.
• Defer to sibling skills for narrow asks. If the user asks strictly for "an SEO agency" with no other marketing scope, use find-seo-agency. If strictly web/app development, use find-web-developer / find-software-developer. This skill is for marketing engagements that span branding/content/paid/social/etc.
• 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, not bigger. 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. Do not pretend to have it from the brief.
• Catalog is US-only B2B. Refuse non-US asks ("a luxury-brand agency in London"), individual freelancers, and personal-brand consulting for the user themselves.
• Multi-word phrases must be split into separate barewords. b2b saas parses as two AND'd keywords.
• 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.

Authed responses carry X-RateLimit-* and X-Quota-* headers. Surface the remaining-month value to the user when it gets low so they can budget.

End-to-end example

User: "Shortlist three B2B branding agencies in California for a Series-A SaaS company — high evidence on branding, ideally with at least a 4-star rating."

# 1. Discover fields (once per session)
GET /v1/tags?include_values=1
# Confirms 'branding' is a valid service_provided tag, 'rating' is numeric.

# 2. Validate the filter and scope the pool (free, no auth)
GET /v1/check?filter=industry:marketing_agency+state:CA+service_provided:branding@high+rating>=4+b2b
# → {"valid": true, "normalized": "..."}

GET /v1/explore?filter=industry:marketing_agency+state:CA+service_provided:branding@high+rating>=4+b2b
# → {"count": 38, "breakdowns": {...}}

# 3. Search briefs
GET /v1/search?filter=...&limit=10
# Header: Authorization: Bearer $SERVICEGRAPH_TOKEN
# → 10 brief cards with service tags, size, state.

# 4. Present briefs to user, get their pick of 3.

# 5. Pull full bundles for the 3 picks
GET /v1/get/<firm_id>     # ×3
# → urls, phones, emails for outreach

End of session: report X-Quota-Remaining-Month so the user knows how much budget is left.