# Firecrawl

> Web search/scrape/crawl via Firecrawl CLI (prefer for live internet lookups).

- Skill: `marchatton/firecrawl` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add marchatton/firecrawl`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/marchatton/firecrawl/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: marchatton (https://skillmd.com/u/marchatton)
- Updated: 2026-09-22
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/marchatton/firecrawl

---


# Firecrawl CLI

Use the `firecrawl` CLI to fetch and search the web. If the user asks for information from the internet, use Firecrawl skill.

## Installation

Check status, auth, and rate limits:

```bash
firecrawl --status
```

Output when ready:

```
  🔥 firecrawl cli v1.0.2

  ● Authenticated via FIRECRAWL_API_KEY
  Concurrency: 0/100 jobs (parallel scrape limit)
  Credits: 500,000 remaining
```

- **Concurrency**: Max parallel jobs. Run parallel operations close to this limit but not above.
- **Credits**: Remaining API credits. Each scrape/crawl consumes credits.

If not installed: `npm install -g firecrawl-cli`

Always refer to the installation rules in [rules/install.md](rules/install.md) for more information if the user is not logged in.

## Authentication

If not authenticated, run:

```bash
firecrawl login --browser
```

The `--browser` flag automatically opens the browser for authentication without prompting. This is the recommended method for agents. Don't tell users to run the commands themselves - just execute the command and have it prompt them to authenticate in their browser.

## Organization

Create a `.firecrawl/` folder in the working directory unless it already exists to store results unless a user specifies to return in context. Add .firecrawl/ to the .gitignore file if not already there. Always use `-o` to write directly to file (avoids flooding context):

```bash
# Search the web (most common operation)
firecrawl search "your query" -o .firecrawl/search-{query}.json

# Search with scraping enabled
firecrawl search "your query" --scrape -o .firecrawl/search-{query}-scraped.json

# Scrape a page
firecrawl scrape https://example.com -o .firecrawl/{site}-{path}.md
```

Examples:

```
.firecrawl/search-react_server_components.json
.firecrawl/search-ai_news-scraped.json
.firecrawl/docs.github.com-actions-overview.md
.firecrawl/firecrawl.dev.md
```

For temporary one-time scripts (batch scraping, data processing), use `.firecrawl/scratchpad/`:

```bash
.firecrawl/scratchpad/bulk-scrape.sh
.firecrawl/scratchpad/process-results.sh
```

Organize into subdirectories when it makes sense for the task:

```
.firecrawl/competitor-research/
.firecrawl/docs/nextjs/
.firecrawl/news/2024-01/
```

**Always quote URLs** - shell interprets `?` and `&` as special characters.

## Commands

### Search - Web search with optional scraping

```bash
# Basic search (human-readable output)
firecrawl search "your query" -o .firecrawl/search-query.txt

# JSON output (recommended for parsing)
firecrawl search "your query" -o .firecrawl/search-query.json --json

# Limit results
firecrawl search "AI news" --limit 10 -o .firecrawl/search-ai-news.json --json

# Search specific sources
firecrawl search "tech startups" --sources news -o .firecrawl/search-news.json --json
firecrawl search "landscapes" --sources images -o .firecrawl/search-images.json --json
firecrawl search "machine learning" --sources web,news,images -o .firecrawl/search-ml.json --json

# Filter by category (GitHub repos, research papers, PDFs)
firecrawl search "web scraping python" --categories github -o .firecrawl/search-github.json --json
firecrawl search "transformer architecture" --categories research -o .firecrawl/search-research.json --json

# Time-based search
firecrawl search "AI announcements" --tbs qdr:d -o .firecrawl/search-today.json --json  # Past day
firecrawl search "tech news" --tbs qdr:w -o .firecrawl/search-week.json --json          # Past week
firecrawl search "yearly review" --tbs qdr:y -o .firecrawl/search-year.json --json      # Past year

# Location-based search
firecrawl search "restaurants" --location "San Francisco,California,United States" -o .firecrawl/search-sf.json --json
firecrawl search "local news" --country DE -o .firecrawl/search-germany.json --json

# Search AND scrape content from results
firecrawl search "firecrawl tutorials" --scrape -o .firecrawl/search-scraped.json --json
firecrawl search "API docs" --scrape --scrape-formats markdown,links -o .firecrawl/search-docs.json --json
```

**Search Options:**

- `--limit <n>` - Maximum results (default: 5, max: 100)
- `--sources <sources>` - Comma-separated: web, images, news (default: web)
- `--categories <categories>` - Comma-separated: github, research, pdf
- `--tbs <value>` - Time filter: qdr:h (hour), qdr:d (day), qdr:w (week), qdr:m (month), qdr:y (year)
- `--location <location>` - Geo-targeting (e.g., "Germany")
- `--country <code>` - ISO country code (default: US)
- `--scrape` - Enable scraping of search results
- `--scrape-formats <formats>` - Scrape formats when --scrape enabled (default: markdown)
- `-o, --output <path>` - Save to file

### Scrape - Single page content extraction

```bash
# Basic scrape (markdown output)
firecrawl scrape https://example.com -o .firecrawl/example.md

# Get raw HTML
firecrawl scrape https://example.com --html -o .firecrawl/example.html

# Multiple formats (JSON output)
firecrawl scrape https://example.com --format markdown,links -o .firecrawl/example.json

# Main content only (removes nav, footer, ads)
firecrawl scrape https://example.com --only-main-content -o .firecrawl/example.md

# Wait for JS to render
firecrawl scrape https://spa-app.com --wait-for 3000 -o .firecrawl/spa.md

# Extract links only
firecrawl scrape https://example.com --format links -o .firecrawl/links.json

# Include/exclude specific HTML tags
firecrawl scrape https://example.com --include-tags article,main -o .firecrawl/article.md
firecrawl scrape https://example.com --exclude-tags nav,aside,.ad -o .firecrawl/clean.md
```

**Scrape Options:**

- `-f, --format <formats>` - Output format(s): markdown, html, rawHtml, links, screenshot, json
- `-H, --html` - Shortcut for `--format html`
- `--only-main-content` - Extract main content only
- `--wait-for <ms>` - Wait before scraping (for JS content)
- `--include-tags <tags>` - Only include specific HTML tags
- `--exclude-tags <tags>` - Exclude specific HTML tags
- `-o, --output <path>` - Save to file

### Map - Discover all URLs on a site

```bash
# List all URLs (one per line)
firecrawl map https://example.com -o .firecrawl/urls.txt

# Output as JSON
firecrawl map https://example.com --json -o .firecrawl/urls.json

# Search for specific URLs
firecrawl map https://example.com --search "blog" -o .firecrawl/blog-urls.txt

# Limit results
firecrawl map https://example.com --limit 500 -o .firecrawl/urls.txt

# Include subdomains
firecrawl map https://example.com --include-subdomains -o .firecrawl/all-urls.txt
```

**Map Options:**

- `--limit <n>` - Maximum URLs to discover
- `--search <query>` - Filter URLs by search query
- `--sitemap <mode>` - include, skip, or only
- `--include-subdomains` - Include subdomains
- `--json` - Output as JSON
- `-o, --output <path>` - Save to file

## Reading Scraped Files

NEVER read entire firecrawl output files at once unless explicitly asked or required - they're often 1000+ lines. Instead, use grep, head, or incremental reads. Determine values dynamically based on file size and what you're looking for.

Examples:

```bash
# Check file size and preview structure
wc -l .firecrawl/file.md && head -50 .firecrawl/file.md

# Use grep to find specific content
grep -n "keyword" .firecrawl/file.md
grep -A 10 "## Section" .firecrawl/file.md

# Read incrementally with offset/limit
Read(file, offset=1, limit=100)
Read(file, offset=100, limit=100)
```

Adjust line counts, offsets, and grep context as needed. Use other bash commands (awk, sed, jq, cut, sort, uniq, etc.) when appropriate for processing output.

## Format Behavior

- **Single format**: Outputs raw content (markdown text, HTML, etc.)
- **Multiple formats**: Outputs JSON with all requested data

```bash
# Raw markdown output
firecrawl scrape https://example.com --format markdown -o .firecrawl/page.md

# JSON output with multiple formats
firecrawl scrape https://example.com --format markdown,links -o .firecrawl/page.json
```

### Branding Format v2 (API)

Branding is obtained from the v2 scrape endpoint with `formats: ["branding"]`.

```bash
curl -sS -X POST "https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/scrape" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FIRECRAWL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com","formats":["branding"],"waitFor":10000}' \
  -o ".firecrawl/example-branding.json"
```

```bash
jq -r '.data.colors.primary' .firecrawl/example-branding.json
jq -r '.data.typography.headings[]?' .firecrawl/example-branding.json
jq -r '.data.logo' .firecrawl/example-branding.json
```

If your `firecrawl` CLI version supports branding as a format, you can use it; otherwise use the API approach above (don't assume CLI support unconditionally).

## Combining with Other Tools

```bash
# Extract URLs from search results
jq -r '.data.web[].url' .firecrawl/search-query.json

# Get titles from search results
jq -r '.data.web[] | "\(.title): \(.url)"' .firecrawl/search-query.json

# Extract links and process with jq
firecrawl scrape https://example.com --format links | jq '.links[].url'

# Search within scraped content
grep -i "keyword" .firecrawl/page.md

# Count URLs from map
firecrawl map https://example.com | wc -l

# Process news results
jq -r '.data.news[] | "[\(.date)] \(.title)"' .firecrawl/search-news.json
```

## Parallelization

**ALWAYS run multiple scrapes in parallel, never sequentially.** Check `firecrawl --status` for concurrency limit, then run up to that many jobs using `&` and `wait`:

```bash
# WRONG - sequential (slow)
firecrawl scrape https://site1.com -o .firecrawl/1.md
firecrawl scrape https://site2.com -o .firecrawl/2.md
firecrawl scrape https://site3.com -o .firecrawl/3.md

# CORRECT - parallel (fast)
firecrawl scrape https://site1.com -o .firecrawl/1.md &
firecrawl scrape https://site2.com -o .firecrawl/2.md &
firecrawl scrape https://site3.com -o .firecrawl/3.md &
wait
```

For many URLs, use xargs with `-P` for parallel execution:

```bash
cat urls.txt | xargs -P 10 -I {} sh -c 'firecrawl scrape "{}" -o ".firecrawl/$(echo {} | md5).md"'
```