firecrawl-instruct

🔥 Firecrawl CLI

Command-line interface for Firecrawl. Search, scrape, interact, crawl, map, and run agent jobs directly from your terminal.

Installation

npm install -g firecrawl-cli

Or set up everything in one command (install CLI globally, authenticate, and add skills across all detected coding editors):

npx -y firecrawl-cli@1.16.2 init -y --browser

• -y runs setup non-interactively
• --browser opens the browser for Firecrawl authentication automatically
• skills install globally to every detected AI coding agent by default

Setup Skills, Workflows, and MCP

If you are using an AI coding agent like Claude Code, you can also install the skills manually:

firecrawl setup skills
firecrawl setup workflows

These install globally across all detected coding editors by default. Use --agent <agent> to scope either command to one editor.

Agent skills

The init command installs all Firecrawl agent skill segments into AI coding agents (Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, etc.):

• CLI skills — teach agents how to use the Firecrawl CLI for live web work (search, scrape, interact, map, crawl, agent)
• Build skills — teach agents how to integrate Firecrawl into application code (choose endpoints, wire SDKs, set up API keys)
• Workflow skills — teach agents how to produce Firecrawl-powered deliverables such as research briefs, SEO audits, QA reports, lead lists, knowledge bases, and design-system extraction

To reinstall skills manually:

firecrawl setup skills
firecrawl setup workflows

To install the Firecrawl MCP server into your editors (Cursor, Claude Code, VS Code, etc.):

firecrawl setup mcp

Quick Start

Just run a command - the CLI will prompt you to authenticate if needed:

firecrawl https://example.com

Authentication

On first run, you'll be prompted to authenticate:

  🔥 firecrawl cli
  Search, scrape, and interact with the web

Welcome! To get started, authenticate with your Firecrawl account.

  1. Login with browser (recommended)
  2. Enter API key manually

Tip: You can also set FIRECRAWL_API_KEY environment variable

Enter choice [1/2]:

Authentication Methods

# Interactive (prompts automatically when needed)
firecrawl

# Browser login
firecrawl login

# Direct API key
firecrawl login --api-key fc-your-api-key

# Environment variable
export FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-your-api-key

# Per-command API key
firecrawl scrape https://example.com --api-key fc-your-api-key

Self-hosted / Local Development

For self-hosted Firecrawl instances or local development, use the --api-url option:

# Use a local Firecrawl instance (no API key required)
firecrawl --api-url http://localhost:3002 scrape https://example.com

# Or set via environment variable
export FIRECRAWL_API_URL=http://localhost:3002
firecrawl scrape https://example.com

# Self-hosted with API key
firecrawl --api-url https://firecrawl.mycompany.com --api-key fc-xxx scrape https://example.com

When using a custom API URL (anything other than https://api.firecrawl.dev), authentication is automatically skipped, allowing you to use local instances without an API key.

---

Commands

scrape - Scrape URLs

Extract content from any webpage. Pass multiple URLs to scrape them concurrently -- each result is saved to .firecrawl/ automatically.

# Basic usage (outputs markdown)
firecrawl https://example.com
firecrawl scrape https://example.com

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

# Multiple formats (outputs JSON)
firecrawl https://example.com --format markdown,links,images

# Save to file
firecrawl https://example.com -o output.md
firecrawl https://example.com --format json -o data.json --pretty

# Multiple URLs (scraped concurrently, each saved to .firecrawl/)
firecrawl scrape https://firecrawl.dev https://firecrawl.dev/blog https://docs.firecrawl.dev

Scrape Options

Option	Description
-f, --format <formats>	Output format(s), comma-separated
-H, --html	Shortcut for --format html
-S, --summary	Shortcut for --format summary
--only-main-content	Extract only main content (removes navs, footers, etc.)
--wait-for <ms>	Wait time before scraping (for JS-rendered content)
--screenshot	Take a screenshot
--full-page-screenshot	Take a full page screenshot
--include-tags <tags>	Only include specific HTML tags
--exclude-tags <tags>	Exclude specific HTML tags
--max-age <milliseconds>	Maximum age of cached content in milliseconds
--lockdown	Enable lockdown mode for the scrape
--schema <json>	JSON schema for structured extraction
--schema-file <path>	Path to JSON schema file for structured extraction
--actions <json>	JSON actions array to run during scrape
--actions-file <path>	Path to JSON actions file
--proxy <proxy>	Proxy mode for scraping (for example, auto, basic)
-o, --output <path>	Save output to file
--json	Output as JSON format
--pretty	Pretty print JSON output
--timing	Show request timing info

Available Formats

Format	Description
markdown	Clean markdown (default)
html	Cleaned HTML
rawHtml	Original HTML
links	All links on the page
images	All images on the page
screenshot	Screenshot as base64
summary	AI-generated summary
json	Structured JSON extraction
changeTracking	Track changes on the page
attributes	Page attributes and metadata
branding	Brand identity extraction

Examples

# Extract only main content as markdown
firecrawl https://blog.example.com --only-main-content

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

# Get all links from a page
firecrawl https://example.com --format links

# Screenshot + markdown
firecrawl https://example.com --format markdown --screenshot

# Extract specific elements only
firecrawl https://example.com --include-tags article,main

# Exclude navigation and ads
firecrawl https://example.com --exclude-tags nav,aside,.ad

---

search - Search the web

Search the web and optionally scrape content from search results.

# Basic search
firecrawl search "firecrawl"

# Limit results
firecrawl search "AI news" --limit 10

# Search news sources
firecrawl search "tech startups" --sources news

# Search images
firecrawl search "landscape photography" --sources images

# Multiple sources
firecrawl search "machine learning" --sources web,news,images

# Filter by category (GitHub, research papers, PDFs)
firecrawl search "web data python" --categories github
firecrawl search "transformer architecture" --categories research
firecrawl search "machine learning" --categories github,research

# Time-based search
firecrawl search "AI announcements" --tbs qdr:d   # Past day
firecrawl search "tech news" --tbs qdr:w          # Past week

# Location-based search
firecrawl search "restaurants" --location "San Francisco,California,United States"
firecrawl search "local news" --country DE

# Search and scrape results
firecrawl search "firecrawl tutorials" --scrape
firecrawl search "API documentation" --scrape --scrape-formats markdown,links

# Output as pretty JSON
firecrawl search "AI data tools"

Search Options

Option	Description
--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", "San Francisco,California,United States")
--country <code>	ISO country code (default: US)
--timeout <ms>	Timeout in milliseconds (default: 60000)
--ignore-invalid-urls	Exclude URLs invalid for other Firecrawl endpoints
--scrape	Enable scraping of search results
--scrape-formats <formats>	Scrape formats when --scrape enabled (default: markdown)
--only-main-content	Include only main content when scraping (default: true)
-o, --output <path>	Save to file
--json	Output as compact JSON

Examples

# Research a topic with recent results
firecrawl search "React Server Components" --tbs qdr:m --limit 10

# Find GitHub repositories
firecrawl search "web data library" --categories github --limit 20

# Search and get full content
firecrawl search "firecrawl documentation" --scrape --scrape-formats markdown --json -o results.json

# Find research papers
firecrawl search "large language models" --categories research --json

# Search with location targeting
firecrawl search "best coffee shops" --location "Berlin,Germany" --country DE

# Get news from the past week
firecrawl search "AI startups funding" --sources news --tbs qdr:w --limit 15

---

map - Discover all URLs on a website

Quickly discover all URLs on a website without scraping content.

# List all URLs (one per line)
firecrawl map https://example.com

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

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

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

Map Options

Option	Description
--limit <n>	Maximum URLs to discover
--search <query>	Filter URLs by search query
--sitemap <mode>	include, skip, or only
--include-subdomains	Include subdomains
--ignore-query-parameters	Dedupe URLs with different params
--timeout <seconds>	Request timeout
--json	Output as JSON
-o, --output <path>	Save to file

Examples

# Find all product pages
firecrawl map https://shop.example.com --search "product"

# Get sitemap URLs only
firecrawl map https://example.com --sitemap only

# Save URL list to file
firecrawl map https://example.com -o urls.txt

# Include subdomains
firecrawl map https://example.com --include-subdomains --limit 1000

---

crawl - Crawl an entire website

Crawl multiple pages from a website.

# Start a crawl (returns job ID)
firecrawl crawl https://example.com

# Wait for crawl to complete
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --wait

# With progress indicator
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --wait --progress

# Check crawl status
firecrawl crawl <job-id>

# Limit pages
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --limit 100 --max-depth 3

Crawl Options

Option	Description
--wait	Wait for crawl to complete
--progress	Show progress while waiting
--limit <n>	Maximum pages to crawl
--max-depth <n>	Maximum crawl depth
--include-paths <paths>	Only crawl matching paths
--exclude-paths <paths>	Skip matching paths
--sitemap <mode>	include, skip, or only
--allow-subdomains	Include subdomains
--allow-external-links	Follow external links
--crawl-entire-domain	Crawl entire domain
--ignore-query-parameters	Treat URLs with different params as same
--delay <ms>	Delay between requests
--max-concurrency <n>	Max concurrent requests
--scrape-options <json>	JSON scrape options passed to each page
--scrape-options-file <path>	Path to scrape options JSON file
--webhook <url-or-json>	Webhook URL or configuration
--cancel	Cancel an active crawl job by job ID
--timeout <seconds>	Timeout when waiting
--poll-interval <seconds>	Status check interval

Examples

# Crawl blog section only
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --include-paths /blog,/posts

# Exclude admin pages
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --exclude-paths /admin,/login

# Crawl with rate limiting
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --delay 1000 --max-concurrency 2

# Deep crawl with high limit
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --limit 1000 --max-depth 10 --wait --progress

# Save results
firecrawl crawl https:/

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