| name | firecrawl-lean |
| description | Web scraping, search, crawling, and browser interaction via Firecrawl CLI. Use when user wants to search the web, fetch a URL, scrape content, crawl docs, download a site, extract structured data, or interact with JS-heavy/login-gated pages. Triggers on: "search for", "scrape", "fetch this URL", "get the page", "crawl", "download the site", "extract structured data", "click the button", "fill the form", "log in to". Do NOT use for local files, git, or code editing.
For advanced use (bulk crawl, AI agent extraction, browser profiles, parallel jobs): install firecrawl-crawl, firecrawl-agent, or firecrawl-instruct skills.
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| allowed-tools | ["Bash(firecrawl *)","Bash(npx firecrawl *)"] |
Firecrawl CLI — lean reference
Check status: firecrawl --status (shows auth + credits + concurrency limit).
Not installed? Run: npm install -g firecrawl-cli && firecrawl auth
Auth commands: firecrawl login, firecrawl logout, firecrawl view-config
WebFetch vs Firecrawl
Try WebFetch first (free). Use Firecrawl when:
- Need web search (WebFetch can't search)
- JS-heavy SPA / marketing pages
- Full article content (WebFetch truncates long pages)
- WebFetch output < 1000 chars or looks incomplete
Escalation pattern
search → scrape → map+scrape → crawl* → interact*
* = advanced, install dedicated skill if needed
Commands
Search — no URL yet, find pages:
firecrawl search "query" --limit 5 -o .firecrawl/results.json --json
firecrawl search "query" --scrape -o .firecrawl/results.json --json
firecrawl search "query" --sources news --tbs qdr:d --json
firecrawl search "query" --country US --location "New York" --json
Scrape — have a URL:
firecrawl scrape "<url>" -o .firecrawl/page.md
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --only-main-content -o .firecrawl/page.md
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --wait-for 3000 -o .firecrawl/page.md
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --query "What is the enterprise price?"
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --format markdown,html,screenshot -o .firecrawl/page.md
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --format json --schema '{"price":"string"}' -o .firecrawl/data.json
Map — find URLs within a site:
firecrawl map "<url>" --search "authentication" -o .firecrawl/urls.txt
firecrawl map "<url>" --limit 200 --json -o .firecrawl/urls.json
firecrawl map "<url>" --include-subdomains --sitemap -o .firecrawl/urls.json
Crawl — bulk extract site section (advanced — install firecrawl-crawl for full docs):
firecrawl crawl "<url>" --include-paths /docs --limit 50 --wait -o .firecrawl/crawl.json
firecrawl crawl "<url>" --max-depth 3 --delay 500 --exclude-paths /blog --wait -o .firecrawl/crawl.json
Download — save site as local files (advanced):
firecrawl download "<url>" --limit 20 -y -o .firecrawl/site/
Interact — click/fill forms after scrape (advanced — install firecrawl-instruct for full docs):
firecrawl scrape "<url>"
firecrawl interact --prompt "Click the login button"
firecrawl interact stop
Agent — AI-powered structured extraction (advanced — install firecrawl-agent for full docs):
firecrawl agent "extract all pricing tiers" --wait -o .firecrawl/data.json
firecrawl agent "extract pricing" --urls "<url>" --schema '{"tiers":[]}' --wait -o .firecrawl/data.json
Browser — CDP/Playwright-style automation (distinct from interact):
firecrawl browser launch-session "<url>"
firecrawl browser execute --code "document.querySelector('button').click()"
firecrawl browser list
firecrawl browser close <session-id>
Output rules
- Always write to
.firecrawl/ with -o to avoid context bloat
- Add
.firecrawl/ to .gitignore
- Always quote URLs (
? and & are shell special chars)
- Never read entire output at once:
head -50 file.md or grep "keyword" file.md
- Naming:
.firecrawl/search-{query}.json, .firecrawl/{site}-{path}.md
Extract URLs from JSON results
jq -r '.data.web[].url' .firecrawl/search.json
Credits
firecrawl credit-usage
