curl

name	curl
description	Fetch web content using curl (faster alternative to WebFetch)

curl Skill

Quick reference for fetching web content with curl instead of WebFetch tool.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• WebFetch is slow, hanging, or unreliable
• You need to fetch web pages or API responses
• You want more control over request headers and options

Quick Start

# Basic fetch (silent, follow redirects)
curl -sL "https://example.com"

# Fetch with timeout (30 seconds)
curl -sL --max-time 30 "https://example.com"

# Fetch JSON API
curl -sL "https://api.github.com/repos/owner/repo" | jq .

# Convert HTML to readable text
curl -sL "https://example.com" | lynx -stdin -dump -nolist

Common Commands

Fetch and Read HTML

# Fetch raw HTML
curl -sL "https://example.com"

# Fetch and convert to readable text (requires lynx)
curl -sL "https://example.com" | lynx -stdin -dump -nolist

# Fetch and save to file
curl -sLo /tmp/page.html "https://example.com"

Fetch JSON APIs

# Fetch and pretty-print JSON
curl -sL "https://api.example.com/endpoint" | jq .

# Fetch with authentication header
curl -sL -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" "https://api.example.com/endpoint" | jq .

# Fetch specific JSON fields
curl -sL "https://api.github.com/repos/owner/repo" | jq '{name, description, stars: .stargazers_count}'

POST Requests

# POST JSON data
curl -sL -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"key":"value"}' "https://api.example.com/endpoint"

# POST form data
curl -sL -X POST -d "field1=value1&field2=value2" "https://example.com/form"

Debugging

# Show response headers
curl -sL -I "https://example.com"

# Show final URL after redirects
curl -sLw "%{url_effective}\n" -o /dev/null "https://example.com"

# Verbose output (for debugging)
curl -sLv "https://example.com" 2>&1 | head -50

Common Flags

Flag	Description
-s	Silent mode (no progress bar)
-L	Follow redirects
-o file	Output to file
-O	Save with remote filename
-H "Header: value"	Add request header
-d "data"	POST data
-X METHOD	HTTP method (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE)
--max-time N	Timeout in seconds
-w "format"	Write-out format string
-I	Headers only (HEAD request)
-v	Verbose output

Workflow Example

When user asks to read a web page:

1. Fetch the content:

   curl -sL --max-time 30 "https://example.com" | lynx -stdin -dump -nolist > /tmp/page.txt
   

2. Read the content: Use the Read tool to read /tmp/page.txt

3. Answer the user's question based on the content

Tips

1. Always use -sL - Silent mode and follow redirects
2. Set a timeout - Use --max-time 30 to avoid hanging
3. Pipe to jq for JSON - Much easier to read
4. Pipe to lynx for HTML - Converts to readable text
5. Save to /tmp/ - Easy to find and read

Comparison with WebFetch

Aspect	curl	WebFetch
Speed	Fast	Can be slow
Reliability	Very reliable	Sometimes hangs
Output	Raw content	Summarized
Control	Full headers, methods	Limited
Processing	Pipe to jq, lynx, etc.	Built-in

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Last updated: 2026-02-10