What user agent does HarkBot send?

The recorded full user agent is `HarkBot/1.0`, with `HarkBot` as the stable token.

Will HarkBot obey a robots.txt block?

Cloudflare's bot directory marks HarkBot as not following robots.txt. Keep the token-specific rule if you want to publish a preference, but use an enforced edge rule to block access.

Is HarkBot used for AI search or model training?

The supplied records do not make either claim. They identify HarkBot as an AI assistant for Hark's personal-intelligence product, so search inclusion and training use should not be inferred from a visit.

HarkBot: AI Crawler Guide & robots.txt

Q: How can I authenticate HarkBot?

Check its Web Bot Auth HTTP message signature with the public keys at https://app.hark.com/.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory. Do not authenticate it from the user-agent string alone.

What is HarkBot?

HarkBot is Hark's automated assistant bot. Hark describes its product as personal intelligence, but the published bot record does not explain a more specific retrieval workflow. The official operator page is listed as https://app.hark.com/about/bot.

That limited description does not support calling HarkBot a search-index crawler, a citation bot, or a training crawler. A request shows that Hark's assistant reached a URL. It does not reveal whether the page will be stored, summarized, or used anywhere beyond the immediate Hark product workflow.

HarkBot declares a compact user agent: HarkBot/1.0. The stable token HarkBot makes log filtering and a bot-specific robots.txt rule possible. The string alone is not proof of origin because another client can send the same header.

Hark also publishes Web Bot Auth keys at https://app.hark.com/.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory. Sites with signature verification at the CDN or edge can validate the HTTP message signature before treating a request as genuine HarkBot traffic. This is the strongest identity detail available in the record.

Cloudflare classifies HarkBot as an AI assistant and marks it as not following robots.txt. A HarkBot rule can still document a site's policy, but enforcement should happen outside robots.txt when the request must be stopped.

There is no verified claim in the supplied operator material that HarkBot affects public AI search visibility or provides data for model training. Allowing it gives Hark's product a chance to access the permitted page. Blocking it limits that access, with no documented effect on unrelated search or training systems.

Relevant for AI search

Is HarkBot relevant for AI search?

Yes. HarkBot collects pages for an AI product, so what it can crawl influences how AI systems describe your brand.

HarkBot crawls and indexes pages so the AI search or assistant behind it can retrieve them at answer time. A page it has never fetched cannot be quoted, summarized, or linked in that product's answers, so most sites keep it allowed to stay citable. Blocking it removes your pages from that AI surface and hands those citations to competitors.

How to handle HarkBot

Use the published token to state a site-wide preference if HarkBot should not fetch pages:

User-agent: HarkBot
Disallow: /

Do not rely on that file for enforcement. Cloudflare's record marks HarkBot as not following robots.txt, so a blocked site should also deny the traffic at its CDN, reverse proxy, or application edge.

Before creating an exception, verify the Web Bot Auth signature with the keys at https://app.hark.com/.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory. A request containing HarkBot/1.0 but lacking a valid signature should not inherit the signed bot's policy.

If Hark's broad personal-intelligence use case is acceptable, allow verified requests only to content the site already intends to expose to that workflow. The operator has not published enough detail to justify assuming every HarkBot visit is search, citation, or training traffic.

Examples

A security team validates a `HarkBot/1.0` request against Hark's signature directory before allowing it to a public page.
A publisher records its preference in robots.txt and adds an edge denial because the bot is listed as not following those directives.
An analyst labels a HarkBot visit as Hark assistant traffic without counting it as proof of a search citation or a model-training fetch.

Frequently asked questions about HarkBot

Learn about AI visibility monitoring and how Promptwatch helps your brand succeed in AI search.

Hark operates HarkBot. The published description ties it to Hark's personal-intelligence product but does not document a narrower retrieval workflow.

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