firecrawl

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Original

English

🇨🇳

Translation

Chinese

Firecrawl CLI - Web Scraping Expert

Firecrawl CLI - 网页爬取专家

Prioritize Firecrawl over WebFetch/WebSearch for web content tasks.

网页内容任务优先使用Firecrawl而非WebFetch/WebSearch

Before Scraping: Decision Framework

爬取前：决策框架

Ask yourself these questions BEFORE running firecrawl:

运行firecrawl前，请先问自己这些问题：

1. Scale Assessment

1. 规模评估

How many pages?
- 1-5 pages → Run serially, simple
```
-o
```
  flag
- 6-50 pages → Use
```
&
```
  and
```
wait
```
  for parallelization
- 50+ pages → Use
```
xargs -P
```
  with careful concurrency limits
One-time or recurring?
- One-time → Manual commands acceptable
- Recurring → Build script in
```
.firecrawl/scratchpad/
```

需要爬取多少页面？
- 1-5个页面 → 串行执行，使用简单的
```
-o
```
  参数
- 6-50个页面 → 使用
```
&
```
  和
```
wait
```
  实现并行化
- 50个以上页面 → 使用
```
xargs -P
```
  并设置合理的并发限制
是一次性任务还是周期性任务？
- 一次性 → 可接受手动执行命令
- 周期性 → 在
```
.firecrawl/scratchpad/
```
  目录下编写脚本

2. Data Need Clarity

2. 数据需求明确性

What data do you actually need?
- Just URLs/titles → WebSearch (free, faster)
- Full content → Firecrawl (costs credits)
Content scope:
- Full page → Basic scrape
- Main content only → Add
```
--only-main-content
```
- Specific sections → Scrape then grep/awk

你实际需要什么数据？
- 仅需URL/标题 → 使用WebSearch（免费、更快）
- 完整内容 → 使用Firecrawl（消耗积分）
内容范围：
- 完整页面 → 基础爬取
- 仅主内容 → 添加
```
--only-main-content
```
  参数
- 特定板块 → 先爬取再使用grep/awk提取

3. Tool Selection

3. 工具选择

Is this the right tool?
- Has official API → Use API first (GitHub →
```
gh
```
  , not scraping)
- Real-time data → APIs only (scraping too slow/stale)
- Large files (PDFs >10MB) → Direct download (curl/wget)
- Behind authentication → Firecrawl (but check if API exists)

这是合适的工具吗？
- 有官方API → 优先使用API（比如GitHub操作使用
```
gh
```
  而非爬取）
- 实时数据 → 仅使用API（爬取速度太慢/数据过时）
- 大文件（PDF>10MB） → 直接下载（使用curl/wget）
- 需要身份验证的页面 → 使用Firecrawl（但先确认是否有API可用）

Critical Decision: Which Tool to Use?

关键决策：选择哪种工具？

User needs web content?
│
├─ Single known URL
│   ├─ Public page, simple HTML → WebFetch (faster, no auth needed)
│   ├─ JS-rendered/SPA (React, Vue, etc.) → Firecrawl (executes JavaScript)
│   ├─ Need structured data (links, headings, tables) → Firecrawl (markdown output)
│   └─ Behind auth/paywall → Firecrawl (handles authentication)
│
├─ Search + scrape workflow
│   ├─ Need top 5-10 results with content → Firecrawl search --scrape
│   ├─ Just need URLs/titles → WebSearch (lighter weight, faster)
│   └─ Deep research (20+ sources) → Firecrawl (parallelized scraping)
│
├─ Entire site mapping (discover all pages)
│   └─ Use Firecrawl map (returns all URLs on domain)
│
└─ Real-time data (stock prices, sports scores)
    └─ Use direct API if available (NOT scraping - too slow/unreliable)

用户需要网页内容？
│
├─ 单个已知URL
│   ├─ 公开页面、简单HTML → WebFetch（更快，无需身份验证）
│   ├─ JS渲染/SPA（React、Vue等） → Firecrawl（可执行JavaScript）
│   ├─ 需要结构化数据（链接、标题、表格） → Firecrawl（输出Markdown格式）
│   └─ 需要身份验证/付费墙 → Firecrawl（支持身份验证）
│
├─ 搜索+爬取工作流
│   ├─ 需要前5-10条带内容的结果 → Firecrawl search --scrape
│   ├─ 仅需URL/标题 → WebSearch（更轻量、更快）
│   └─ 深度调研（20+来源） → Firecrawl（支持并行爬取）
│
├─ 全站地图（发现所有页面）
│   └─ 使用Firecrawl map（返回域名下所有URL）
│
└─ 实时数据（股票价格、体育比分）
    └─ 如有可用直接使用API（不要爬取 - 速度太慢/不可靠）

Anti-Patterns (NEVER Do This)

反模式（绝对不要这样做）

❌ #1: Sequential Scraping

❌ #1: 串行爬取

Problem: Scraping sites one-by-one wastes time.

bash

undefined

问题：逐个爬取站点会浪费大量时间。

bash

undefined

WRONG - sequential (10 sites = 50+ seconds)

错误 - 串行执行（10个站点需要50+秒）

for url in site1 site2 site3 site4 site5; do firecrawl scrape "$url" -o ".firecrawl/$url.md" done

CORRECT - parallel (10 sites = 5-8 seconds)

正确 - 并行执行（10个站点需要5-8秒）

firecrawl scrape site1 -o .firecrawl/1.md & firecrawl scrape site2 -o .firecrawl/2.md & firecrawl scrape site3 -o .firecrawl/3.md & wait

BEST - xargs parallelization

最优方案 - xargs并行化

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


**Why**: Firecrawl supports up to 100 parallel jobs (check `firecrawl --status`). Use them.

**Why this is deceptively hard to debug**: Operations complete successfully—just slowly. No error messages indicate the problem. When scraping 20 sites takes 2 minutes instead of 10 seconds, it's not obvious the bottleneck is sequential execution rather than network speed. Profiling reveals the issue: 90% of time is spent waiting, not processing. Takes 10-15 minutes to realize parallelization is the fix.

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


**原因**：Firecrawl支持最多100个并行任务（可通过`firecrawl --status`查看），请充分利用。

**为何这个问题难以排查**：操作能成功完成，但速度极慢。没有错误信息提示问题所在。当爬取20个站点耗时2分钟而非10秒时，你可能不会立刻意识到瓶颈是串行执行而非网络速度。性能分析会发现：90%的时间都在等待而非处理。通常需要10-15分钟才能意识到并行化是解决方案。

❌ #2: Reading Full Output into Context

❌ #2: 将完整输出读入上下文

Problem: Firecrawl results often exceed 1000+ lines. Reading entire files floods context.

bash

undefined

问题：Firecrawl的结果通常超过1000行，读取整个文件会占满上下文。

bash

undefined

WRONG - reads 5000-line file into context

错误 - 将5000行的文件读入上下文

Read(.firecrawl/result.md)

CORRECT - preview first, then targeted extraction

正确 - 先预览，再针对性提取

wc -l .firecrawl/result.md # Check size: 5243 lines head -100 .firecrawl/result.md # Preview structure grep -A 10 "keyword" .firecrawl/result.md # Extract relevant sections


**Why**: Context is precious. Use bash tools (grep, head, tail, awk) to extract what you need.

**Why this is deceptively hard to debug**: No error message appears—file loads successfully into context. The agent thinks "I'll just read the file" without checking size first. You only discover the problem 30+ messages later when context limits hit, or responses become sluggish. File explorers don't show line counts by default. Terminal shows "success" but you've silently wasted 4000+ tokens. Takes 15-20 minutes to realize incremental reading with grep/head would have been 20x more efficient.

wc -l .firecrawl/result.md # 查看文件行数：5243行 head -100 .firecrawl/result.md # 预览文件结构 grep -A 10 "keyword" .firecrawl/result.md # 提取相关板块


**原因**：上下文资源宝贵，请使用bash工具（grep、head、tail、awk）提取你需要的内容。

**为何这个问题难以排查**：没有错误信息——文件能成功加载到上下文。Agent会直接“读取整个文件”而不先检查大小。通常在30多条消息后，当上下文达到限制或响应变慢时，你才会发现问题。文件浏览器默认不显示行数，终端显示“成功”但你已经悄悄浪费了4000+ tokens。通常需要15-20分钟才能意识到使用grep/head进行增量读取效率会高20倍。

❌ #3: Using Firecrawl for Wrong Tasks

❌ #3: 错误的任务使用Firecrawl

NEVER use Firecrawl for:

Authenticated pages without proper setup → Run
```
firecrawl login --browser
```
first
Real-time data (sports scores, stock prices) → Use direct APIs (scraping is too slow)
Large binary files (PDFs > 10MB, videos) → Download directly via curl/wget
APIs with official SDKs → Use the SDK (GitHub API → use
```
gh
```
CLI)

Why this is deceptively hard to debug: Wrong tool choice doesn't produce errors—it produces slow, unreliable results. Scraping real-time data "works" but is 10 seconds behind and costs credits per request. Using Firecrawl instead of

gh api

for GitHub succeeds but rate-limits hit faster (5000 API calls vs 100 scrapes/min). PDF scraping extracts text but mangles tables—only after 30 minutes of post-processing do you realize

pdftotext

would have worked perfectly in 2 seconds.

绝对不要将Firecrawl用于以下场景：

未正确配置的需身份验证页面 → 先运行
```
firecrawl login --browser
```
实时数据（体育比分、股票价格） → 使用直接API（爬取速度太慢）
大型二进制文件（PDF>10MB、视频） → 使用curl/wget直接下载
有官方SDK的API → 使用SDK（GitHub API使用
```
gh
```
CLI）

原因：错误的工具选择不会产生错误，但会导致结果缓慢、不可靠。爬取实时数据“能工作”但会滞后10秒，且每次请求都会消耗积分。使用Firecrawl而非

gh api

操作GitHub能成功，但会更快触发速率限制（API支持5000次调用，而爬取仅支持100次/分钟）。爬取PDF能提取文本但会损坏表格——通常在30分钟的后处理后，你才会意识到使用

pdftotext

仅需2秒就能完美完成任务。

❌ #4: Ignoring Output Organization

❌ #4: 忽略输出组织

Problem: Dumping all results in working directory creates mess.

bash

undefined

问题：将所有结果直接输出到工作目录会造成混乱。

bash

undefined

WRONG - pollutes working directory

错误 - 污染工作目录

firecrawl scrape https://example.com

CORRECT - organized structure

正确 - 结构化存储

firecrawl scrape https://example.com -o .firecrawl/example.com.md firecrawl search "AI news" -o .firecrawl/search-ai-news.json firecrawl map https://docs.site.com -o .firecrawl/docs-sitemap.txt


**Why**: `.firecrawl/` directory keeps workspace clean, add to `.gitignore`.

**Why this is deceptively hard to debug**: No error—files just accumulate in root directory. After 10-15 scrapes, `ls` output becomes unreadable. Worse: firecrawl's default output to stdout means results appear in terminal but aren't saved, requiring re-scraping (wasting credits). Only after losing data twice do you realize `-o` flag is mandatory for persistence. Git commits accidentally include scraped data before `.gitignore` is updated.

---

firecrawl scrape https://example.com -o .firecrawl/example.com.md firecrawl search "AI news" -o .firecrawl/search-ai-news.json firecrawl map https://docs.site.com -o .firecrawl/docs-sitemap.txt


**原因**：`.firecrawl/`目录能保持工作区整洁，可将其添加到`.gitignore`。

**为何这个问题难以排查**：没有错误——文件只是堆积在根目录。经过10-15次爬取后，`ls`的输出会变得难以阅读。更糟的是：Firecrawl默认输出到标准输出，结果会显示在终端但不会保存，需要重新爬取（浪费积分）。通常在丢失两次数据后，你才会意识到`-o`参数是持久化保存的必需项。在更新`.gitignore`前，Git提交可能会意外包含爬取的数据。

---

Authentication Setup

身份验证设置

Before first use, check auth status:

bash

firecrawl --status

If not authenticated:

bash

firecrawl login --browser  # Opens browser automatically

The

--browser

flag auto-opens authentication page without prompting. Don't ask user to run manually—execute and let browser handle auth.

首次使用前，检查身份验证状态：

bash

firecrawl --status

若未通过身份验证：

bash

firecrawl login --browser  # 自动打开浏览器

--browser

参数会自动打开身份验证页面，无需手动提示。不要让用户手动运行——直接执行并让浏览器处理身份验证。

Core Operations (Quick Reference)

核心操作（快速参考）

Search the Web

网页搜索

bash

undefined

bash

undefined

Basic search

基础搜索

firecrawl search "your query" -o .firecrawl/search-query.json --json

firecrawl search "你的查询内容" -o .firecrawl/search-query.json --json

Search + scrape content from results

搜索并爬取结果内容

firecrawl search "firecrawl tutorials" --scrape -o .firecrawl/search-scraped.json --json

Time-filtered search

时间过滤搜索

firecrawl search "AI announcements" --tbs qdr:d -o .firecrawl/today.json --json # Past day firecrawl search "tech news" --tbs qdr:w -o .firecrawl/week.json --json # Past week

undefined

firecrawl search "AI announcements" --tbs qdr:d -o .firecrawl/today.json --json # 过去24小时 firecrawl search "tech news" --tbs qdr:w -o .firecrawl/week.json --json # 过去一周

undefined

Scrape Single Page

爬取单个页面

bash

undefined

bash

undefined

Get clean markdown

获取整洁的Markdown内容

firecrawl scrape https://example.com -o .firecrawl/example.md

Main content only (removes nav, footer, ads)

仅获取主内容（移除导航、页脚、广告）

firecrawl scrape https://example.com --only-main-content -o .firecrawl/clean.md

Wait for JS to render (SPAs)

等待JS渲染（SPA场景）

firecrawl scrape https://spa-app.com --wait-for 3000 -o .firecrawl/spa.md

undefined

firecrawl scrape https://spa-app.com --wait-for 3000 -o .firecrawl/spa.md

undefined

Map Entire Site

全站地图生成

bash

undefined

bash

undefined

Discover all URLs

发现所有URL

firecrawl map https://example.com -o .firecrawl/urls.txt

Filter for specific pages

过滤特定页面

firecrawl map https://example.com --search "blog" -o .firecrawl/blog-urls.txt

---

firecrawl map https://example.com --search "blog" -o .firecrawl/blog-urls.txt

---

Expert Pattern: Parallel Bulk Scraping

专家模式：批量并行爬取

Check concurrency limit first:

bash

firecrawl --status

先检查并发限制：

bash

firecrawl --status

Output: Concurrency: 0/100 jobs

输出：Concurrency: 0/100 jobs


**Run up to limit**:
```bash


**按限制运行**：
```bash

For list of URLs in file

针对文件中的URL列表

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

For generated URLs

针对生成的URL

for i in {1..20}; do firecrawl scrape "https://site.com/page/$i" -o ".firecrawl/page-$i.md" & done wait


**Extract data after bulk scrape**:
```bash

for i in {1..20}; do firecrawl scrape "https://site.com/page/$i" -o ".firecrawl/page-$i.md" & done wait


**批量爬取后提取数据**：
```bash

Extract all H1 headings from scraped pages

从爬取的页面中提取所有H1标题

grep "^# " .firecrawl/*.md

Find pages mentioning keyword

查找包含指定关键词的页面

grep -l "keyword" .firecrawl/*.md

Process with jq (if JSON output)

使用jq处理（若为JSON输出）

jq -r '.data.web[].title' .firecrawl/*.json

---

jq -r '.data.web[].title' .firecrawl/*.json

---

When to Load Full CLI Reference

何时加载完整CLI参考文档

MANDATORY - READ ENTIRE FILE:

references/cli-options.md

when:

Error mentions 3+ unknown flags (e.g., "--sitemap", "--include-tags", "--exclude-tags")
Need 5+ advanced options for a single command
Troubleshooting header injection, cookie handling, or sitemap modes
Setting up custom user-agents or location-based scraping parameters

MANDATORY - READ ENTIRE FILE:

references/output-processing.md

when:

Building pipeline with 3+ transformation steps (firecrawl | jq | awk | ...)
Parsing nested JSON structures from search results (accessing .data.web[].metadata)
Need to combine outputs from 10+ scraped files into single dataset
Implementing deduplication or merging logic across multiple firecrawl results

Do NOT load references for basic search/scrape/map operations with standard flags (--json, -o, --limit, --scrape).

必须阅读完整文档：当出现以下情况时，阅读

references/cli-options.md

：

错误信息提到3个以上未知参数（如"--sitemap"、"--include-tags"、"--exclude-tags"）
单个命令需要5个以上高级参数
排查请求头注入、Cookie处理或站点地图模式问题
设置自定义用户代理或基于位置的爬取参数

必须阅读完整文档：当出现以下情况时，阅读

references/output-processing.md

：

构建包含3个以上转换步骤的流水线（firecrawl | jq | awk | ...）
解析搜索结果中的嵌套JSON结构（访问.data.web[].metadata）
需要将10个以上爬取文件的输出合并为单个数据集
实现多个Firecrawl结果的去重或合并逻辑

无需加载参考文档：使用标准参数（--json、-o、--limit、--scrape）的基础搜索/爬取/地图生成操作。

Error Recovery Procedures

错误恢复流程

When "Not authenticated" Error Occurs

出现“未通过身份验证”错误时

Recovery steps:

Check current auth status:
```
firecrawl --status
```
Run authentication:
```
firecrawl login --browser
```
(auto-opens browser)
Verify success:
```
firecrawl --status
```
should show "Authenticated via FIRECRAWL_API_KEY"
Fallback: If browser auth fails, manually set API key:
```
export FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=your_key
```
(get key from firecrawl.dev dashboard)

恢复步骤：

检查当前身份验证状态：
```
firecrawl --status
```
执行身份验证：
```
firecrawl login --browser
```
（自动打开浏览器）
验证成功：
```
firecrawl --status
```
应显示“Authenticated via FIRECRAWL_API_KEY”
备选方案：若浏览器验证失败，手动设置API密钥：
```
export FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=your_key
```
（从firecrawl.dev控制台获取密钥）

When "Concurrency limit reached" Error Occurs

出现“达到并发限制”错误时

Recovery steps:

Check current usage:
```
firecrawl --status
```
(shows X/100 jobs)
Wait for running jobs:
```
wait
```
(if using
```
&
```
background jobs)
Verify capacity freed:
```
firecrawl --status
```
should show lower usage
Fallback: If jobs are stuck, reduce parallelization (e.g.,
```
xargs -P 5
```
instead of
```
-P 10
```
) and retry. Jobs auto-timeout after 5 minutes.

恢复步骤：

检查当前使用情况：
```
firecrawl --status
```
（显示X/100个任务）
等待正在运行的任务完成：
```
wait
```
（若使用
```
&
```
后台任务）
验证可用容量：
```
firecrawl --status
```
应显示更低的使用率
备选方案：若任务卡住，降低并行度（比如将
```
xargs -P 10
```
改为
```
-P 5
```
）并重试。任务会在5分钟后自动超时。

When "Page failed to load" Error Occurs

出现“页面加载失败”错误时

Recovery steps:

Test basic connectivity:
```
curl -I URL
```
(verify site is accessible)

Increase JS wait time:

firecrawl scrape URL --wait-for 5000 -o output.md

Verify output has content:
```
wc -l output.md
```
(should be >10 lines)
Fallback: If still empty after 10s wait, page may be fully client-rendered → try
```
--format html
```
to check raw HTML, or use alternate approach (curl + cheerio, or try WebFetch if JS not critical)

恢复步骤：

测试基础连通性：
```
curl -I URL
```
（验证站点可访问）

增加JS等待时间：

firecrawl scrape URL --wait-for 5000 -o output.md

验证输出内容：
```
wc -l output.md
```
（应超过10行）
备选方案：若等待10秒后仍为空，页面可能是纯客户端渲染 → 尝试
```
--format html
```
查看原始HTML，或使用其他方法（curl + cheerio，若不需要JS则使用WebFetch）

When "Output file is empty" Error Occurs

出现“输出文件为空”错误时

Recovery steps:

Check if content exists:
```
head -20 output.md
```
(see what was captured)

Try main content extraction:

firecrawl scrape URL --only-main-content -o output.md

Verify improvement:
```
wc -l output.md
```
(should increase significantly)
Fallback: If still empty, page structure may be unusual → use
```
--include-tags article,main
```
or
```
--exclude-tags nav,aside,footer
```
to target specific HTML elements. If that fails, page may have no scrapeable text (images only, canvas-based, etc.).

恢复步骤：

检查是否有内容：
```
head -20 output.md
```
（查看捕获的内容）

尝试提取主内容：

firecrawl scrape URL --only-main-content -o output.md

验证改进效果：
```
wc -l output.md
```
（行数应显著增加）
备选方案：若仍为空，页面结构可能特殊 → 使用
```
--include-tags article,main
```
或
```
--exclude-tags nav,aside,footer
```
指定目标HTML元素。若仍失败，页面可能无可爬取文本（仅图片、基于canvas等）。

Resources

资源

CLI Help:

firecrawl --help

firecrawl <command> --help

Status Check:
```
firecrawl --status
```
(shows auth, credits, concurrency)
This Skill: Decision trees, anti-patterns, expert parallelization patterns

CLI帮助：

firecrawl --help

或

firecrawl <command> --help

状态检查：
```
firecrawl --status
```
（显示身份验证、积分、并发情况）
本技能文档：决策树、反模式、专家并行爬取模式