firecrawl-scrape
firecrawl/cli
Extract clean markdown from any URL, including JavaScript-rendered pages.
What is firecrawl-scrape?
Scrape one or more URLs and get LLM-optimized markdown output. Handles both static pages and single-page applications (SPAs), with support for concurrent scraping of multiple URLs. Use this whenever you need to extract content from a webpage.
- Extract clean markdown from static and JS-rendered pages
- Scrape multiple URLs concurrently with a single command
- Strip navigation, footer, and sidebar to isolate main content
- Wait for JavaScript rendering before extraction
- Query pages with natural language questions to get targeted answers
- Output in multiple formats: markdown, HTML, links, screenshots, or JSON
How to install firecrawl-scrape
npx skills add null --skill firecrawl-scrape- Firecrawl CLI installed and configured
- Valid Firecrawl API key set up
- Internet access to reach target URLs
How to use firecrawl-scrape
- 1.Run `firecrawl scrape "<url>"` to extract markdown from a single URL
- 2.Add `--only-main-content` flag to remove navigation and footer elements
- 3.Use `--wait-for <ms>` if the page requires JavaScript rendering time
- 4.Specify output format with `-f, --format` (e.g., markdown, links, json)
- 5.Save output to a file with `-o <path>` for later reference or processing
- 6.For multiple URLs, list them as space-separated arguments to scrape concurrently
Use cases
- Extract article content from a blog post or news site
- Get pricing information from a company's pricing page
- Scrape documentation or help pages for reference
- Collect links and metadata from a webpage
- Extract main content from a single-page application without manual interaction
- Developers building web scraping workflows
- Content researchers gathering information from multiple URLs
- AI agents needing to read and understand webpage content
- Anyone extracting data from websites for analysis or processing
firecrawl-scrape FAQ
Use scrape for static pages and JavaScript-rendered SPAs to extract content. Only escalate to interact when you need to click buttons, fill forms, or navigate through pages that require user interaction.
The --query option lets you ask a natural language question about page content and get a targeted answer. However, it costs 5 extra credits. Prefer scraping to a file and searching the markdown yourself unless you only need a single specific answer.
Use the `--wait-for <ms>` option to wait for JavaScript execution before scraping. For example, `--wait-for 3000` waits 3 seconds for the page to render.
Yes, list multiple URLs as space-separated arguments. They are scraped concurrently, but check `firecrawl --status` to see your concurrency limit.
Available formats are: markdown, html, rawHtml, links, screenshot, and json. Use a single format for raw content output, or combine multiple formats (e.g., `--format markdown,links`) to get JSON output.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from firecrawl/cli.
name: firecrawl-scrape description: | Extract clean markdown from any URL, including JavaScript-rendered SPAs. Use this skill whenever the user provides a URL and wants its content, says "scrape", "grab", "fetch", "pull", "get the page", "extract from this URL", or "read this webpage". Handles JS-rendered pages, multiple concurrent URLs, and returns LLM-optimized markdown. Use this instead of WebFetch for any webpage content extraction. allowed-tools:
- Bash(firecrawl *)
- Bash(npx firecrawl *)
firecrawl scrape
Scrape one or more URLs. Returns clean, LLM-optimized markdown. Multiple URLs are scraped concurrently.
When to use
- You have a specific URL and want its content
- The page is static or JS-rendered (SPA)
- Step 2 in the workflow escalation pattern: search → scrape → map → crawl → interact
Quick start
# Basic markdown extraction
firecrawl scrape "<url>" -o .firecrawl/page.md
# Main content only, no nav/footer
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --only-main-content -o .firecrawl/page.md
# Wait for JS to render, then scrape
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --wait-for 3000 -o .firecrawl/page.md
# Multiple URLs (each saved to .firecrawl/)
firecrawl scrape https://example.com https://example.com/blog https://example.com/docs
# Get markdown and links together
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --format markdown,links -o .firecrawl/page.json
# Ask a question about the page
firecrawl scrape "https://example.com/pricing" --query "What is the enterprise plan price?"
Options
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
-f, --format <formats> | Output formats: markdown, html, rawHtml, links, screenshot, json |
-Q, --query <prompt> | Ask a question about the page content (5 credits) |
-H | Include HTTP headers in output |
--only-main-content | Strip nav, footer, sidebar — main content only |
--wait-for <ms> | Wait for JS rendering before scraping |
--include-tags <tags> | Only include these HTML tags |
--exclude-tags <tags> | Exclude these HTML tags |
--redact-pii | Redact personally identifiable information from output |
-o, --output <path> | Output file path |
Tips
- Prefer plain scrape over
--query. Scrape to a file, then usegrep,head, or read the markdown directly — you can search and reason over the full content yourself. Use--queryonly when you want a single targeted answer without saving the page (costs 5 extra credits). - Try scrape before interact. Scrape handles static pages and JS-rendered SPAs. Only escalate to
interactwhen you need interaction (clicks, form fills, pagination). - Multiple URLs are scraped concurrently — check
firecrawl --statusfor your concurrency limit. - Single format outputs raw content. Multiple formats (e.g.,
--format markdown,links) output JSON. - Always quote URLs — shell interprets
?and&as special characters. - Naming convention:
.firecrawl/{site}-{path}.md
See also
- firecrawl-search — find pages when you don't have a URL
- firecrawl-interact — when scrape can't get the content, use
interactto click, fill forms, etc. - firecrawl-download — bulk download an entire site to local files
Related skills
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firecrawl
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firecrawl-search
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firecrawl-crawl
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firecrawl-agent
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firecrawl-map
Discover and list all URLs on a website with optional search filtering.
firecrawl-download
Download entire websites as local markdown, screenshots, or multiple formats organized in directories.