Connect Semrush to Hermes
Give Hermes governed access to Semrush’s 23 tools through Runlayer, with identity, policy, scanning, and audit on every call.
Set up
Add Semrush to Hermes in four steps
Admins approve the server once. Everyone in Hermes then gets it through the same governed connection.
- 1
Add Semrush to Runlayer
Semrush isn’t in the Runlayer catalog yet, so an admin adds it by its MCP server URL.
Adding a connector manually - 2
Connect Hermes to Runlayer
Users add the Runlayer Plugin to Hermes by following Runlayer’s setup guide. Hermes reaches Semrush’s 23 tools through the Runlayer Plugin’s search and execute tools instead of listing each one.
Hermes setup guide - 3
Sign in to Semrush
Sign in the way Semrush requires. Runlayer holds the credentials so they stay out of the client’s configuration.
- 4
Use Semrush from Hermes
Semrush’s approved tools appear in Hermes. Every call is checked against policy and recorded.
Tools
23 Semrush tools in Hermes
Runlayer policy decides which of these Hermes users can call.
Audience research
Audience Analytics: visitor profile of a domain — demographics (age, gender, income, education, household size, occupation), audience interests, visitor geography by country, audience overlap between…
Backlink research
Backlink profile analysis: referring domains, anchor texts, authority scores, link growth history, and competitor link comparison.
Backlinks research
Backlink Analytics: for a single domain's link profile — backlinks, referring domains and IPs, anchor texts, geographic and TLD distribution, Authority Score breakdown, domain and referring-domain…
Competitors research
Competitive Research: find who competes with a domain in organic search, paid search, and Google Shopping (PLA); compare keyword overlap and backlink profiles between multiple domains; analyze market…
Domain overview
Get high-level counters for a domain, subdomain, subfolder, or URL — Semrush Rank, keyword/traffic/cost totals, PLA, SERP Features.
Execute report
Execute any Semrush report.
Get report schema
Get a report's parameters.
Keyword research
Keyword Analytics: look up any keyword — search volume, CPC, competition, keyword difficulty, SERP results (organic and paid), related keywords, broad match variations, phrase questions, and ads…
Control
What Runlayer can see and stop in Hermes
Some controls apply to every client at the gateway. Others depend on what Hermes exposes to Runlayer.
Gateway policy (available)
Every Semrush call from Hermes passes through Runlayer, where your policies can allow, alert, mask, or block it.
Audit trail (available)
Each call is recorded with the user, Hermes as the client, the tool, and the policy and scanner decisions.
Client hooks (available)
Capture supported prompts, reasoning, local and MCP tool calls, responses, and scanner decisions in real time.
Stop a call before it runs (available)
Runlayer can deny a tool call before Hermes runs it.
Block output after it runs (available)
Runlayer can block a tool’s output in Hermes and show a message in its place.
Redact output in place (not available)
Hermes cannot take masked output, so Runlayer can block a tool’s output but not mask it. The gateway still applies policy to the call.
In Hermes
- Hermes can replace blocked tool output with a message, but its after-call event is for monitoring only.
Frequently asked questions
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