Valyu by Valyu

# Fix list: Valyu

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/valyu, the October 2026 research run, assessed 1 October 2026. Grade B, 64.6 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on Valyu: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Security & auth, 44 out of 100, up to 9.8 more on the total

Why it scored 44: The CLI mints API keys with a hard spending cap and can rotate and revoke them, management keys carry explicit scopes, organisations have MFA, and the hosted MCP has OAuth sign-in (28). The MCP docs lead with `?valyuApiKey=` in the URL (minus 10). Spend-capped keys and `max_price` limit cost exposure, but `valyu_deepresearch_control` deletes tasks with no confirmation we could find (12). Search and Contents return full page text from the open web, and we found no prompt-injection guidance in the docs index (0). No per-call log or audit trail found for the operator (0). SOC 2 Type 2 shown on the privacy page, security.txt valid per the 30 September check, no bug bounty or public advisories found (14).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 2. Reliability, 53 out of 100, up to 9.4 more on the total

Why it scored 53: Instatus page at status.valyu.ai with separate Search, Contents, Answer and DeepResearch components and an RSS history (20). Two items in the last 90 days. On 17 July 2026 a subset of Search requests returned errors or incomplete web results after a deployment, which was rolled back. On 9 August Search had 3 hours 13 minutes of scheduled maintenance. Minor only (20). No rate limits published in the docs, pricing or OpenAPI (0). 429 is listed in the OpenAPI, with no Retry-After header or backoff guidance (3). No SLA found (0). Search, Contents, Answer and DeepResearch are GA, and Workflows is labelled beta (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 3. Payments & pricing, 45 out of 100, up to 6.9 more on the total

Why it scored 45: No x402, MPP or L402 in llms.txt or the pricing page (0). Per-1,000-result prices by source type, $0.001 per Contents URL and fixed DeepResearch prices, all public (20). $10 of free credit ($20 with a work email), no card (20). A person has to create the account, but after that an agent can log in through the CLI, headless if needed, and mint its own spend-capped keys. That's a programmatic key route after a human signup, so we gave part of the line (5).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 4. Agent ergonomics, 78 out of 100, up to 3.6 more on the total

Why it scored 78: `max_num_results`, `response_length`, `fast_mode` and `max_price` size each response, and the MCP has six tools after folding eleven into one `valyu_search`. We couldn't read the hosted tool definitions, since the server isn't open source (22). Source include and exclude lists, per-source biases, dates, country and a relevance threshold. No pagination found (18). Distinct codes for payment (402), permission (403), rate limit (429) and partial success (206). We didn't read the error bodies (15). Failed requests aren't charged, but `valyu_deepresearch_control` can cancel or delete tasks and we couldn't see any MCP annotations (8). Only `query` is required, with Python and TypeScript SDKs plus a Rust SDK in alpha (15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 5. Schema & documentation, 87 out of 100, up to 2.1 more on the total

Why it scored 87: Valid OpenAPI 3.0.3 (info version 2.3.0) with 26 paths across Search, Contents, Answer, DeepResearch, Batches, Workflows and Datasources (25). llms.txt with a 'Guidance for agents' section (10). The MCP tools carry one-line purposes such as 'Read one or more URLs as clean markdown', and the docs explain source presets, but say little about when not to use a tool (13). `search_type` is an enum, `max_num_results` runs 1 to 20, `relevance_threshold` 0 to 1, `source_biases` -5 to 5 and `instructions` caps at 500 characters, with only `query` required (14). 200, 206 partial success, 400, 401, 402, 403, 429 and 500 documented, with examples across the docs (13). Versioned paths (/v1) and a dated platform changelog, though its newest entry is 30 June 2026 while the SDKs shipped in July, August and September (12).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 6. Maintenance & community, 80 out of 100, up to 1.8 more on the total

Why it scored 80: valyu-py 2.12.2 and valyu-js on 2026-09-12 (30). valyu-py tagged 2.11.1, 2.12.0, 2.12.1 and 2.12.2 between 14 July and 12 September (20). Public platform changelog, but its newest entry is 30 June 2026. We didn't test support response (9). Current Python and TypeScript SDKs. The MCP server isn't in the official registry (15). The SDK repos have publish workflows and took dependency fixes for advisories in July, but we found no test CI (6).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## 7. Transparency & trust, 79 out of 100, up to 1.8 more on the total

Made of editorial 65, provenance 92.

Why it scored 79: Closed service with terms that name Valyu.Network Ltd, company 14436543 in England and Wales, per the 30 September check (15). The privacy policy (20 October 2025) says queries are deleted within 24 to 72 hours, security logs kept 90 days, performance logs 30 days and billing records 7 years, and that query data isn't used to train models. No DPA referenced (26). Dated notice for the legacy MCP tools, hidden now and removed on 1 December 2026, but no general deprecation policy (12). Processing in the UK, EU and US is disclosed. Subprocessors are named by category only (12).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Domain age: valyu.ai, registered 2024-09-03 (2 years) (7 of 15)

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- unchecked: rate limits, which the docs, pricing page and OpenAPI don't state
- unchecked: the hosted MCP tool definitions and annotations, since the server isn't open source
- unchecked: subprocessor names and a DPA, neither found on the privacy page

## Weaknesses

- No published rate limits and no Retry-After or backoff guidance
- Web results cost $1.50 per 1,000 results retrieved, so a 10-result search is $0.015
- MCP docs lead with `?valyuApiKey=` in the URL query string
- No prompt-injection guidance for the full page text it returns
- Platform changelog hasn't had an entry since 30 June 2026

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Set `max_price` and `max_num_results` on every search to bound cost
- Mint a spend-capped key with the Valyu CLI rather than reusing the account's main key
- Call `valyu_search`. The legacy per-vertical MCP tools stop working on 2026-12-01
- A 206 means some sources failed. Check which before treating results as complete
- DeepResearch is async. Poll `valyu_deepresearch_status` rather than waiting in one call

## What the review panel asked for

- Keyless trial
- x402 route
- published rate limits

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.