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fetch-url

Fetch a single URL and convert its content to Markdown. Use when you need to read a web page, documentation page, or API reference without indexing it. The content is returned as plain Markdown text on stdout.

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Repository
arabold/docs-mcp-server
Last source activity
March 15, 2026 at 22:46
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English
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name
fetch-url
description
Fetch a single URL and convert its content to Markdown. Use when you need to read a web page, documentation page, or API reference without indexing it. The content is returned as plain Markdown text on stdout.
compatibility
Requires Node.js 22+ and npx
metadata
{"author":"grounded.tools"}
# Fetch URL Fetch a single URL and convert its content to clean Markdown. This does **not** add anything to the documentation index; it is a one-shot read operation. ## When to use - You need to read a single web page and get its content as Markdown. - You want to inspect a documentation page before deciding whether to index it. - You need the raw text of a URL for summarisation or analysis. If you need to index the content for repeated searching, use the **docs-manage** skill (`scrape` command) instead. ## Command ```bash npx @arabold/docs-mcp-server@latest fetch-url <url> [options] ``` | Flag | Default | Description | |------|---------|-------------| | `--follow-redirects` | `true` | Follow HTTP redirects | | `--no-follow-redirects` | | Disable following redirects | | `--scrape-mode auto\|fetch\|playwright` | `auto` | HTML processing strategy | | `--header "Name: Value"` | | Custom HTTP header (repeatable) | | `--quiet` | | Suppress non-error diagnostics | | `--verbose` | | Enable debug logging | ## Scrape modes | Mode | When to use | |------|-------------| | `auto` | Default. Tries a simple HTTP fetch first, falls back to Playwright for JS-rendered pages. | | `fetch` | Force a plain HTTP fetch. Fastest, but misses content rendered by JavaScript. | | `playwright` | Force a headless browser. Use for SPAs or pages that require JavaScript to render. | ## Examples ```bash # Fetch a documentation page npx @arabold/docs-mcp-server@latest fetch-url https://react.dev/reference/react/useEffect # Fetch with custom auth header npx @arabold/docs-mcp-server@latest fetch-url https://docs.internal.com/api \ --header "Authorization: Bearer tok_xxx" # Force Playwright for a JS-heavy page npx @arabold/docs-mcp-server@latest fetch-url https://some-spa.dev/docs --scrape-mode playwright # Disable redirect following npx @arabold/docs-mcp-server@latest fetch-url https://example.com/old-page --no-follow-redirects ``` ## Output The command writes the converted Markdown text directly to **stdout**. The global `--output` flag is accepted but has no effect because the result is already plain text, not structured data. Diagnostics and errors go to **stderr** and are suppressed by default in non-interactive sessions. Use `--verbose` (or set `LOG_LEVEL=INFO`) to re-enable them. Use `--quiet` to suppress all non-error diagnostics regardless of session type. ## Tips - Pipe the output to a file if you want to save it: `npx @arabold/docs-mcp-server@latest fetch-url <url> > page.md` - Combine with search: fetch a page to read its full content after `search` returns a relevant URL. - For pages behind authentication, use `--header` to pass cookies or tokens.
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