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Shap-User

Parallel's user-initiated fetcher that retrieves pages on behalf of users of its web APIs.
ParallelShap-User
AI AssistantUser Initiated

What is Shap-User?

Shap-User is one of the named user agents on Parallel's bots page. Parallel builds web APIs for AI agents, such as search, extract and research. Shap-User appears when someone uses those products to read a specific page.

Parallel says Shap-User is not used for crawling the web automatically, and that it is intended to give content owners visibility rather than to be managed through automated controls. Automatic crawling is handled by ShapBot, which builds and maintains the search index.

The documented user agent is Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; Shap-User/0.1.0. Parallel signs Shap-User requests with Web Bot Auth (HTTP Message Signatures) and publishes the public keys at https://shap-user.parallel.ai/.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory.

Relevant for AI searchParallel

Is Shap-User relevant for AI search?

Yes. Shap-User fetches pages for users of Parallel's web APIs, which AI agents use to research and cite the web.

Shap-User identifies requests Parallel makes on behalf of its users. It is not used to crawl the web automatically, so it does not decide whether your site is in Parallel's search index. That is ShapBot. Blocking Shap-User cuts off on-demand reads by agents built on Parallel, and those agents then rely on other sources.

How to handle Shap-User

Treat Shap-User as a visibility signal. Parallel says it is not meant to be controlled through robots.txt, so use ShapBot for crawl and index decisions:

User-agent: ShapBot
Disallow: /

To allow or block Shap-User itself, validate its Web Bot Auth signature against the key directory above and apply the rule at your CDN or WAF.

Examples

  • A research agent built on Parallel reads a competitor's pricing page, and the site logs show a signed Shap-User request.
  • A site owner leaves ShapBot allowed for indexing and lets Shap-User through after confirming the signature.

Frequently asked questions about Shap-User

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

It is the user agent Parallel uses when it fetches a page on behalf of a user of its products. It does not crawl automatically.

Related bots

ShapBot

Crawls and indexes web content to power Parallel's search and content extraction APIs for AI applications.

AI Crawler

ExaUser

Exa's on-demand fetcher that retrieves a page live when a user or an app built on the Exa API asks for it.

AI Assistant

ChatGPT-User

Handles user-initiated requests in ChatGPT, accessing external content to provide real-time information; not used for automated crawling or AI training.

AI Assistant

Claude-User

Claude-User supports Claude AI users. When individuals ask questions to Claude, it may access websites using a Claude-User agent.

AI Assistant

Perplexity-User

Handles user-initiated requests in Perplexity, accessing external content to provide real-time information; not used for automated crawling or AI training.

AI Assistant

Be the brand AI recommends

Monitor your brand's visibility across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. Get actionable insights and create content that gets cited by AI search engines.

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