apify-hello-world

name	apify-hello-world
description	Run your first Apify Actor and retrieve results via apify-client. Use when starting a new Apify integration, testing connectivity, or learning the Actor call/dataset retrieval pattern. Trigger with "apify hello world", "apify example", "run an apify actor", "apify quick start", "first apify scrape".
allowed-tools	Read, Write, Edit, Bash(npm:*), Bash(npx:*), Bash(node:*)
version	1.5.0
license	MIT
author	Jeremy Longshore <[e-mail]>
tags	["saas","scraping","automation","apify"]
compatibility	Designed for Claude Code

Apify Hello World

Overview

Run a public Actor from the Apify Store, wait for it to finish, and retrieve the scraped data. This demonstrates the fundamental call-wait-collect pattern used in every Apify integration.

Prerequisites

• npm install apify-client completed
• APIFY_TOKEN environment variable set
• See apify-install-auth if not ready

Authentication

Every call authenticates with a personal API token passed to the client constructor: new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN }). Keep the token in the APIFY_TOKEN environment variable — never hard-code it in the script. Full setup (where to generate the token, how to export it) lives in the apify-install-auth skill.

Core Pattern: Call Actor, Get Data

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });

// 1. Run an Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor('apify/website-content-crawler').call({
  startUrls: [{ url: 'https://docs.apify.com/academy' }],
  maxCrawlPages: 5,
});

// 2. Retrieve results from the default dataset
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

console.log(`Crawled ${items.length} pages:`);
items.( {
  .();
});