Fetch live web pages for agents through ScrapingAnt's hosted MCP server (`https://api.scrapingant.com/mcp`) with headless-Chrome rendering, rotating datacenter/residential proxies, Cloudflare and anti-bot handling, and LLM-ready Markdown output. Use when a plain fetch/WebFetch is blocked (403/429, Cloudflare challenge), when a JavaScript/SPA page returns an empty shell, when geo-specific content is needed, or when standing up a local browser scraper costs more than the task is worth. Triggers on: scrapingant, MCP web scraping, fetch blocked page, Cloudflare bypass, anti-bot scraping, JS rendered page, scrape to markdown, residential proxy fetch, geo-targeted scrape, live web access for agents.
Fetch live web pages for agents through ScrapingAnt's hosted MCP server (`https://api.scrapingant.com/mcp`) with headless-Chrome rendering, rotating datacenter/residential proxies, Cloudflare and anti-bot handling, and LLM-ready Markdown output. Use when a plain fetch/WebFetch is blocked (403/429, Cloudflare challenge), when a JavaScript/SPA page returns an empty shell, when geo-specific content is needed, or when standing up a local browser scraper costs more than the task is worth. Triggers on: scrapingant, MCP web scraping, fetch blocked page, Cloudflare bypass, anti-bot scraping, JS rendered page, scrape to markdown, residential proxy fetch, geo-targeted scrape, live web access for agents.
allowed-tools
Bash Read Write Edit WebFetch
compatibility
Hosted MCP over streamableHttp — no local server, runtime, or browser to install. Needs a ScrapingAnt API key (free tier: 10,000 credits/month at signup, no card) exported as SCRAPINGANT_API_KEY. Vendor-documented clients: Claude Code (CLI), Claude Desktop, VS Code / GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Cline, Windsurf. Helper scripts need bash + curl only.
metadata
{"tags":"scrapingant, mcp, web-scraping, markdown, anti-bot, cloudflare, headless-chrome, residential-proxy, js-rendering, rag, live-web-access, sponsor","platforms":"Claude, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code Copilot, Cline, jeo, gjc, jeopi, OpenCode","version":"1.0","source":"https://docs.scrapingant.com/mcp-server"}
ScrapingAnt Web Fetch — hosted MCP for live, unblocked web content
ScrapingAnt exposes a hosted MCP server at https://api.scrapingant.com/mcp.
An agent that registers it gets three fetch tools backed by headless Chrome and
a rotating proxy pool, so blocked or JavaScript-rendered pages come back as
clean Markdown instead of a challenge page. Nothing runs locally: no browser
binary, no Python environment, no MCP process to supervise.
Sponsor. ScrapingAnt is a partner of jeo-skills. Signing up through
scrapingant.com?ref=ztewzmv&tm_source=readme supports
this repository at no extra cost to you. The free tier (10,000 credits/month
as of signup, no credit card) is enough to evaluate every workflow below.
When to use this skill
A normal fetch/WebFetch returns 403/429, a Cloudflare interstitial, or a
bot-check page instead of content
The target is a SPA (React/Next.js docs, dashboards) whose raw HTML is an
empty shell until JavaScript runs
You need page content as Markdown for RAG, summarization, or doc reference
without writing selectors
Content is geo-restricted and must be fetched from a specific country
A one-off or low-volume scrape does not justify installing Playwright,
Scrapling, or a browser image in CI
The agent runtime speaks MCP (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, VS Code
Copilot, Claude Desktop) and you want a fetch tool available in-conversation
When not to use this skill
The page is public, static, and unprotected — a plain curl/WebFetch costs
zero credits and is faster
You need a full crawl, link frontier, or selector-drift healing across many
pages — use scrapling (local Python, spiders) instead
The target is X/Twitter — x-twitter-scraper handles that platform's
specifics
The work needs an authenticated session, form filling, or multi-step browser
interaction — MCP fetch tools take a URL, not a script; drive a real browser
Scraping the target would violate its Terms of Service, robots policy, or
applicable law — decline instead of routing around the block
VS Code / GitHub Copilot is the one exception — it uses servers,
requestInit.headers, and a trailing slash on the URL. Per-client file paths
and snippets: references/mcp-clients.md, or
print one with scrapingant.sh install <client>.
Step 3 — Pick the right tool
MCP tool
Returns
Use it for
Default?
get_web_page_markdown
LLM-ready Markdown
RAG, summarizing, reading docs
✅ default
get_web_page_html
Raw HTML
selector-based post-processing, DOM checks
on request
get_web_page_text
Plain text
cheapest token footprint, text-only checks
on request
Default to Markdown. Only reach for HTML when something downstream actually
parses the DOM — raw HTML burns far more context for the same page.
Headless browser with JS rendering + datacenter proxy
10
No browser + residential proxy
25
Headless browser with JS rendering + residential proxy
125
So 10,000 free credits ≈ 10,000 static fetches, ≈ 1,000 JS-rendered fetches, or
80 residential+JS fetches. Escalate, never start at the top: try
browser=false first, add browser=true when the body is empty, and switch to
proxy_type=residential only when a datacenter attempt is actually blocked.
Step 5 — Verify before reporting
# remaining credits on the key (GET /v2/usage)
bash .agent-skills/scrapingant-web-fetch/scripts/scrapingant.sh credits
# end-to-end smoke test against the REST twin of the MCP tools
bash .agent-skills/scrapingant-web-fetch/scripts/scrapingant.sh probe https://example.com
probe uses the REST endpoint (/v2/markdown) so a key can be validated
without an MCP client attached. It reports the credit shape it used.
Examples
Once the server is registered, drive it in plain language:
Fetch https://example.com with scrapingant and summarize it.
Get https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html as markdown, then list the main topics.
This page 403s for me — refetch it through scrapingant with residential proxies.
Fetch https://example.com through a German proxy and compare it with the US version.
Cheap-first escalation inside one task:
1. get_web_page_markdown(url, browser=false) → 1 credit
2. body empty/JS-only? retry with browser=true → 10 credits
3. still 403/Cloudflare? retry proxy_type=residential → 125 credits, last resort
Try free first. Plain WebFetch/curl costs nothing; route to
ScrapingAnt when it actually fails, not by default.
Markdown by default.get_web_page_markdown keeps the token footprint
small; get_web_page_html is opt-in for DOM work.
Escalate one axis at a time (browser → residential → country) and record
which shape worked so the next run starts there.
Never hardcode the key. It lives in SCRAPINGANT_API_KEY; scripts mask it
in output, and MCP config files should reference the env var where the client
supports interpolation.
Watch the budget. Run scrapingant.sh credits before a batch; the free
tier does not roll over between months.
Respect the target. Honor robots/ToS and rate limits; anti-bot bypass is
for legitimate access, not for evading a site's explicit refusal.
Re-verify the vendor surface (tools, parameters, credit table) before
editing this skill — see the sourced links below.
Troubleshooting
Symptom
Cause
Fix
SCRAPINGANT_API_KEY is not set
key not exported
Step 1; restart the client after exporting
403 / challenge page still returned
datacenter proxy blocked
proxy_type=residential, then a specific proxy_country
Empty or shell-only content
JS-rendered page fetched with browser=false
retry with browser=true
Tools missing in the client
server not registered or client not restarted
rerun Step 2, restart the client, re-check claude mcp list
credits reports 0 remaining
monthly free tier exhausted
wait for renewal or upgrade; credits do not roll over
References
references/mcp-clients.md — per-client
registration (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, VS Code/Copilot, Cursor, Cline,
Windsurf) with exact config paths
