---

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. allowed-tools:

• Bash(firecrawl *)
• Bash(npx firecrawl *)

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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        # include full content
firecrawl search "query" --sources news --tbs qdr:d --json                 # news, past day
firecrawl search "query" --country US --location "New York" --json         # geo-targeted

Scrape — have a URL:

firecrawl scrape "<url>" -o .firecrawl/page.md
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --only-main-content -o .firecrawl/page.md        # strip nav/footer
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --wait-for 3000 -o .firecrawl/page.md            # wait for JS
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --query "What is the enterprise price?"            # targeted Q (5 credits)
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --format markdown,html,screenshot -o .firecrawl/page.md  # multi-format
firecrawl scrape "<url>" --format json --schema '{"price":"string"}' -o .firecrawl/data.json  # structured

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