playpanda

name	playpanda
description	Fetch any URL and convert to clean markdown for LLM consumption. Use when the user asks to "fetch a page", "get content from URL", "scrape this website", "convert to markdown", "read this article", or needs web content as context. Supports authenticated sites (Facebook, Medium, etc.) via stealth browser.
metadata	{"author":"ancs21","version":"0.0.3"}

PlayPanda — Web to Markdown for LLMs

Fetch any URL and get clean, token-optimized markdown. Three-tier engine: HTTP (fastest), Lightpanda (JS rendering), stealth browser (anti-detection for protected sites).

Installation

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ancs21/playpanda/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

Commands

playpanda <url>                                     # fetch → markdown to stdout
playpanda <url>,<url>,...                            # multiple URLs, separated by ---
playpanda profile                                   # open browser, log in, save cookies
playpanda upgrade                                   # upgrade to latest version

How It Works — 3-Tier Engine

Tier	Speed	Method	When
1: HTTP	~150ms	curl + native Zig HTML-to-markdown	Static pages
2: Lightpanda	~1.5s	Headless browser + LP.getMarkdown	JS-rendered pages
3: CloakBrowser	~6s	Real Chrome + CDP	Protected sites (Facebook, Medium, Google)

Auto-routing:

• Known protected domains (facebook.com, medium.com, google.com, etc.) → Tier 3
• Otherwise → Tier 1, auto-escalate to Tier 2 if content is empty/blocked, then Tier 3
• If any tier returns a Cloudflare challenge, CAPTCHA, or "blocked" message, it automatically escalates

When to Use This Skill

• User asks to read/fetch/scrape a web page
• User needs web content as context for a task
• User wants to convert HTML to markdown
• User needs to access paywalled/authenticated content

Examples

# Single URL
playpanda https://example.com

# Multiple URLs
playpanda https://example.com,https://ziglang.org

# Pipe to Claude
playpanda https://example.com | claude "Summarize this:"

# Save to file
playpanda https://example.com > article.md

# Log in first for protected sites
playpanda profile
playpanda https://medium.com/the-andela-way/graph-databases-why-are-they-important-c438e1a224ae

Output

The output is markdown optimized for LLM consumption:

• Navigation, ads, script, style, footer, header stripped
• Long CDN image URLs removed (alt text preserved)
• Tracking URLs stripped (utm_, fbclid, etc.)
• HTML entities decoded
• Token-efficient (~90% reduction from raw HTML)

Troubleshooting

• "Lightpanda not found" → Run playpanda upgrade or set LIGHTPANDA_BINARY_PATH
• Blocked by Cloudflare → Run playpanda profile to log in and save cookies
• Empty output → Site may need JS rendering (auto-escalates to Tier 2)