Kagi Assistant: User Agent, robots.txt Rules & Safety Rating

Q: What user-agent string does Kagi Assistant use?

Kagi Assistant is reported to identify itself with kagi-fetcher. That spelling comes from ai.robots.txt, not from Kagi, which has not published crawler documentation naming it. Use it in robots.txt as the best available match, and treat a request carrying it as a clue rather than proof of who sent it.

Q: Is Kagi Assistant safe?

Kagi Assistant is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: Kagi has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.

Q: Will blocking Kagi Assistant hurt my SEO?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Kagi Assistant does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Kagi Assistant is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.

Q: How do I block Kagi Assistant in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file: User-agent: kagi-fetcher Disallow: / This instructs Kagi Assistant not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).

Q: How do I verify if Kagi Assistant is crawling my site?

Search your access logs for kagi-fetcher (for example grep -i "kagi-fetcher" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Because the operator publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern, a match shows that something used the name, not that Kagi sent it.

Quick Facts

User-Agent:: kagi-fetcher
Category:: AI & LLM Bots
Operator:: Kagi
Safety:: Safe
Blocking Impact:: Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:: 2/10
Official docs:: None published by Kagi
Named by:: ai.robots.txt

Reported, not operator documented

Kagi has not published a crawler page that names kagi-fetcher. It is listed here because a credible public source does: ai.robots.txt. Reported Kagi on-demand fetcher; Kagi documents only Kagibot.

What that means for you: the robots.txt rule on this page is the best available spelling, and a well-behaved crawler using this string will honour it, but there is no vendor statement of purpose, crawl rate or robots.txt compliance to rely on. Treat a matching request in your logs as a detection clue, not proof of who sent it, and combine the rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you. If the operator publishes documentation, this profile moves to Official docs.

What is Kagi Assistant?

Kagi Assistant is an on-demand AI fetcher operated by Kagi. It retrieves a page only when a user explicitly asks an AI assistant or agent to read, summarize, or act on a specific URL. Because it is triggered by real user intent rather than bulk crawling, blocking it mainly prevents users from pulling your content into Kagi's assistant.

Kagi Assistant is an on-demand AI fetcher operated by Kagi. It retrieves a page only when a user explicitly asks an AI assistant or agent to read, summarize, or act on a specific URL. Because it is triggered by real user intent rather than bulk crawling, blocking it mainly prevents users from pulling your content into Kagi's assistant.
Kagi Assistant uses the user-agent token kagi-fetcher. You can control it via robots.txt, meta tags (noai), or the emerging llms.txt standard. Robots.txt is voluntary; for hard enforcement, combine it with server-level IP blocking.

What happens if you block Kagi Assistant?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Kagi Assistant does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Kagi Assistant is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.

Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

How to block Kagi Assistant with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: kagi-fetcher</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately.

Block completely (robots.txt)

User-agent: kagi-fetcher
Disallow: /

Allow all (robots.txt)

User-agent: kagi-fetcher
Allow: /

Block private only (robots.txt)

User-agent: kagi-fetcher
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /admin/
Allow: /

Nginx server block

# Nginx: Hard-block Kagi Assistant
if ($http_user_agent ~* "kagi-fetcher") {
    return 403 "Bot blocked";
}

Apache .htaccess

# Apache: Hard-block Kagi Assistant
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "kagi-fetcher" bad_bot
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=bad_bot

Meta robots tag

X-Robots-Tag header

X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is Kagi Assistant safe to allow?

Kagi Assistant is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: Kagi has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.

Kagi publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern for Kagi Assistant, so the user-agent string cannot be verified. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.

What does Kagi Assistant do?

Understanding Kagi Assistant's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

Fetches a page only when a user asks an AI assistant to read it
Summarizes or extracts the URL the user provided
Triggered by real user intent, not bulk crawling
Low traffic volume compared with training crawlers
Blocking it prevents users from pulling your content into the assistant

Frequently Asked Questions

What user-agent string does Kagi Assistant use?

Kagi Assistant is reported to identify itself with kagi-fetcher. That spelling comes from ai.robots.txt, not from Kagi, which has not published crawler documentation naming it. Use it in robots.txt as the best available match, and treat a request carrying it as a clue rather than proof of who sent it.

Is Kagi Assistant safe?

Kagi Assistant is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: Kagi has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.

Will blocking Kagi Assistant hurt my SEO?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Kagi Assistant does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Kagi Assistant is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.

How do I block Kagi Assistant in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:

User-agent: kagi-fetcher
Disallow: /

This instructs Kagi Assistant not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).

Does Kagi Assistant respect robots.txt?

Not documented. Kagi has published no statement that Kagi Assistant reads robots.txt. A rule for kagi-fetcher will stop a client that chooses to honour it; for enforcement, add a firewall or CDN rule as well.

How do I verify if Kagi Assistant is crawling my site?

Search your access logs for kagi-fetcher (for example grep -i "kagi-fetcher" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Because the operator publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern, a match shows that something used the name, not that Kagi sent it.