firecrawl-cli

🔥 Firecrawl CLI

Command-line interface for Firecrawl. Scrape, crawl, and extract data from any website directly from your terminal.

Installation

npm install -g firecrawl-cli

Or set up everything in one command (install CLI globally, authenticate, and add skills):

npx -y firecrawl-cli@latest init --all --browser

• --all installs the firecrawl skill to every detected AI coding agent
• --browser opens the browser for Firecrawl authentication automatically

Setup Skills and MCP

If you are using an AI coding agent like Claude Code, you can also install the skill individually with:

firecrawl setup skills

To install the Firecrawl MCP server into your editors (Cursor, Claude Code, VS Code, etc.):

firecrawl setup mcp

Or directly via npx:

npx skills add firecrawl/cli
npx add-mcp "npx -y firecrawl-mcp" --name firecrawl

Quick Start

Just run a command - the CLI will prompt you to authenticate if needed:

firecrawl https://example.com

Authentication

On first run, you'll be prompted to authenticate:

  🔥 firecrawl cli
  Turn websites into LLM-ready data

Welcome! To get started, authenticate with your Firecrawl account.

  1. Login with browser (recommended)
  2. Enter API key manually

Tip: You can also set FIRECRAWL_API_KEY environment variable

Enter choice [1/2]:

Authentication Methods

# Interactive (prompts automatically when needed)
firecrawl

# Browser login
firecrawl login

# Direct API key
firecrawl login --api-key fc-your-api-key

# Environment variable
export FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-your-api-key

# Per-command API key
firecrawl scrape https://example.com --api-key fc-your-api-key

Self-hosted / Local Development

For self-hosted Firecrawl instances or local development, use the --api-url option:

# Use a local Firecrawl instance (no API key required)
firecrawl --api-url http://localhost:3002 scrape https://example.com

# Or set via environment variable
export FIRECRAWL_API_URL=http://localhost:3002
firecrawl scrape https://example.com

# Self-hosted with API key
firecrawl --api-url https://firecrawl.mycompany.com --api-key fc-xxx scrape https://example.com

When using a custom API URL (anything other than https://api.firecrawl.dev), authentication is automatically skipped, allowing you to use local instances without an API key.

Commands

scrape - Scrape URLs

Extract content from any webpage. Pass multiple URLs to scrape them concurrently -- each result is saved to .firecrawl/ automatically.

# Basic usage (outputs markdown)
firecrawl https://example.com
firecrawl scrape https://example.com

# Get raw HTML
firecrawl https://example.com --html
firecrawl https://example.com -H

# Multiple formats (outputs JSON)
firecrawl https://example.com --format markdown,links,images

# Save to file
firecrawl https://example.com -o output.md
firecrawl https://example.com --format json -o data.json --pretty

# Multiple URLs (scraped concurrently, each saved to .firecrawl/)
firecrawl scrape https://firecrawl.dev https://firecrawl.dev/blog https://docs.firecrawl.dev

Scrape Options

Option	Description
-f, --format <formats>	Output format(s), comma-separated
-H, --html	Shortcut for --format html
-S, --summary	Shortcut for --format summary
--only-main-content	Extract only main content (removes navs, footers, etc.)
--wait-for <ms>	Wait time before scraping (for JS-rendered content)
--screenshot	Take a screenshot
--full-page-screenshot	Take a full page screenshot
--include-tags <tags>	Only include specific HTML tags
--exclude-tags <tags>	Exclude specific HTML tags
--max-age <milliseconds>	Maximum age of cached content in milliseconds
-o, --output <path>	Save output to file
--json	Output as JSON format
--pretty	Pretty print JSON output
--timing	Show request timing info

Available Formats

Format	Description
markdown	Clean markdown (default)
html	Cleaned HTML
rawHtml	Original HTML
links	All links on the page
images	All images on the page
screenshot	Screenshot as base64
summary	AI-generated summary
json	Structured JSON extraction
changeTracking	Track changes on the page
attributes	Page attributes and metadata
branding	Brand identity extraction

Examples

# Extract only main content as markdown
firecrawl https://blog.example.com --only-main-content

# Wait for JS to render, then scrape
firecrawl https://spa-app.com --wait-for 3000

# Get all links from a page
firecrawl https://example.com --format links

# Screenshot + markdown
firecrawl https://example.com --format markdown --screenshot

# Extract specific elements only
firecrawl https://example.com --include-tags article,main

# Exclude navigation and ads
firecrawl https://example.com --exclude-tags nav,aside,.ad

search - Search the web

Search the web and optionally scrape content from search results.

# Basic search
firecrawl search "firecrawl web scraping"

# Limit results
firecrawl search "AI news" --limit 10

# Search news sources
firecrawl search "tech startups" --sources news

# Search images
firecrawl search "landscape photography" --sources images

# Multiple sources
firecrawl search "machine learning" --sources web,news,images

# Filter by category (GitHub, research papers, PDFs)
firecrawl search "web scraping python" --categories github
firecrawl search "transformer architecture" --categories research
firecrawl search "machine learning" --categories github,research

# Time-based search
firecrawl search "AI announcements" --tbs qdr:d   # Past day
firecrawl search "tech news" --tbs qdr:w          # Past week

# Location-based search
firecrawl search "restaurants" --location "San Francisco,California,United States"
firecrawl search "local news" --country DE

# Search and scrape results
firecrawl search "firecrawl tutorials" --scrape
firecrawl search "API documentation" --scrape --scrape-formats markdown,links

# Output as pretty JSON
firecrawl search "web scraping"

Search Options

Option	Description
--limit <n>	Maximum results (default: 5, max: 100)
--sources <sources>	Comma-separated: web, images, news (default: web)
--categories <categories>	Comma-separated: github, research, pdf
--tbs <value>	Time filter: qdr:h (hour), qdr:d (day), qdr:w (week), qdr:m (month), qdr:y (year)
--location <location>	Geo-targeting (e.g., "Germany", "San Francisco,California,United States")
--country <code>	ISO country code (default: US)
--timeout <ms>	Timeout in milliseconds (default: 60000)
--ignore-invalid-urls	Exclude URLs invalid for other Firecrawl endpoints
--scrape	Enable scraping of search results
--scrape-formats <formats>	Scrape formats when --scrape enabled (default: markdown)
--only-main-content	Include only main content when scraping (default: true)
-o, --output <path>	Save to file
--json	Output as compact JSON

Examples

# Research a topic with recent results
firecrawl search "React Server Components" --tbs qdr:m --limit 10

# Find GitHub repositories
firecrawl search "web scraping library" --categories github --limit 20

# Search and get full content
firecrawl search "firecrawl documentation" --scrape --scrape-formats markdown --json -o results.json

# Find research papers
firecrawl search "large language models" --categories research --json

# Search with location targeting
firecrawl search "best coffee shops" --location "Berlin,Germany" --country DE

# Get news from the past week
firecrawl search "AI startups funding" --sources news --tbs qdr:w --limit 15

map - Discover all URLs on a website

Quickly discover all URLs on a website without scraping content.

# List all URLs (one per line)
firecrawl map https://example.com

# Output as JSON
firecrawl map https://example.com --json

# Search for specific URLs
firecrawl map https://example.com --search "blog"

# Limit results
firecrawl map https://example.com --limit 500

Map Options

Option	Description
--limit <n>	Maximum URLs to discover
--search <query>	Filter URLs by search query
--sitemap <mode>	include, skip, or only
--include-subdomains	Include subdomains
--ignore-query-parameters	Dedupe URLs with different params
--timeout <seconds>	Request timeout
--json	Output as JSON
-o, --output <path>	Save to file

Examples

# Find all product pages
firecrawl map https://shop.example.com --search "product"

# Get sitemap URLs only
firecrawl map https://example.com --sitemap only

# Save URL list to file
firecrawl map https://example.com -o urls.txt

# Include subdomains
firecrawl map https://example.com --include-subdomains --limit 1000

crawl - Crawl an entire website

Crawl multiple pages from a website.

# Start a crawl (returns job ID)
firecrawl crawl https://example.com

# Wait for crawl to complete
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --wait

# With progress indicator
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --wait --progress

# Check crawl status
firecrawl crawl <job-id>

# Limit pages
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --limit 100 --max-depth 3

Crawl Options

Option	Description
--wait	Wait for crawl to complete
--progress	Show progress while waiting
--limit <n>	Maximum pages to crawl
--max-depth <n>	Maximum crawl depth
--include-paths <paths>	Only crawl matching paths
--exclude-paths <paths>	Skip matching paths
--sitemap <mode>	include, skip, or only
--allow-subdomains	Include subdomains
--allow-external-links	Follow external links
--crawl-entire-domain	Crawl entire domain
--ignore-query-parameters	Treat URLs with different params as same
--delay <ms>	Delay between requests
--max-concurrency <n>	Max concurrent requests
--timeout <seconds>	Timeout when waiting
--poll-interval <seconds>	Status check interval

Examples

# Crawl blog section only
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --include-paths /blog,/posts

# Exclude admin pages
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --exclude-paths /admin,/login

# Crawl with rate limiting
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --delay 1000 --max-concurrency 2

# Deep crawl with high limit
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --limit 1000 --max-depth 10 --wait --progress

# Save results
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --wait -o crawl-results.json --pretty

credit-usage - Check your credits

# Show credit usage
firecrawl credit-usage

# Output as JSON
firecrawl credit-usage --json --pretty

agent - AI-powered web data extraction

Run an AI agent that autonomously browses and extracts structured data from the web based on natural language prompts.

Note: Agent tasks typically take 2 to 5 minutes to complete, and sometimes longer for complex extractions. Use sparingly and consider --max-credits to limit costs.

# Basic usage (returns job ID immediately)
firecrawl agent "Find the pricing plans for Firecrawl"

# Wait for completion
firecrawl agent "Extract all product names and prices from this store" --wait

# Focus on specific URLs
firecrawl agent "Get the main features listed" --urls https://example.com/features

# Use structured output with JSON schema
firecrawl agent "Extract company info" --schema '{"type":"object","properties":{"name":{"type":"string"},"employees":{"type":"number"}}}'

# Load schema from file
firecrawl agent "Extract product data" --schema-file ./product-schema.json --wait

# Check status of an existing job
firecrawl agent <job-id>
firecrawl agent <job-id> --wait

Agent Options

Option	Description
--urls <urls>	Comma-separated URLs to focus extraction on
--model <model>	spark-1-mini (default, cheaper) or spark-1-pro (accurate)
--schema <json>	JSON schema for structured output (inline JSON string)
--schema-file <path>	Path to JSON schema file for structured output
--max-credits <number>	Maximum credits to spend (job fails if exceeded)
--status	Check status of existing agent job
--wait	Wait for agent to complete before returning results
--poll-interval <seconds>	Polling interval in seconds when waiting (default: 5)
--timeout <seconds>	Timeout in seconds when waiting (default: no timeout)
-o, --output <path>	Save output to file
--json	Output as JSON format
--pretty	Pretty print JSON output

Examples

# Research task with timeout
firecrawl agent "Find the top 5 competitors of Notion and their pricing" --wait --timeout 300

# Extract data with cost limit
firecrawl agent "Get all blog post titles and dates" --urls https://blog.example.com --max-credits 100 --wait

# Use higher accuracy model for complex extraction
firecrawl agent "Extract detailed technical specifications" --model spark-1-pro --wait --pretty

# Save structured results to file
firecrawl agent "Extract contact information" --schema-file ./contact-schema.json --wait -o contacts.json --pretty

# Check job status without waiting
firecrawl agent abc123-def456-... --json

# Poll a running job until completion
firecrawl agent abc123-def456-... --wait --poll-interval 10

browser - Browser sandbox sessions (Beta)

Launch and control cloud browser sessions. By default, commands are sent to agent-browser (pre-installed in every sandbox). Use --python or --node to run Playwright code directly instead.

# 1. Launch a session
firecrawl browser launch --stream

# 2. Execute agent-browser commands (default)
firecrawl browser execute "open https://example.com"
firecrawl browser execute "snapshot"
firecrawl browser execute "click @e5"
firecrawl browser execute "scrape"

# 3. Execute Playwright Python or JavaScript
firecrawl browser execute --python "await page.goto('https://example.com'); print(await page.title())"
firecrawl browser execute --node "await page.goto('https://example.com'); await page.title()"

# 4. List sessions
firecrawl browser list

# 5. Close
firecrawl browser close

Launch Options

Option	Description
--ttl <seconds>	Total session TTL in seconds (default: 300)
--ttl-inactivity <seconds>	Inactivity TTL in seconds
--stream	Enable live view streaming
-o, --output <path>	Save output to file
--json	Output as JSON format

Execute Options

Option	Description
--python	Execute as Playwright Python code
--node	Execute as Playwright JavaScript code
--bash	Execute bash commands in the sandbox (agent-browser pre-installed)
--session <id>	Target a specific session (auto-saved on launch)
-o, --output <path>	Save output to file
--json	Output as JSON format

By default (no flag), commands are sent to agent-browser. --python, --node, and --bash are mutually exclusive.

Examples

# agent-browser commands (default mode)
firecrawl browser execute "open https://example.com"
firecrawl browser execute "snapshot"
firecrawl browser execute "click @e5"
firecrawl browser execute "fill @e3 'search query'"
firecrawl browser execute "scrape"

# Playwright Python
firecrawl browser execute --python "await page.goto('https://example.com'); print(await page.title())"

# Playwright JavaScript
firecrawl browser execute --node "await page.goto('https://example.com'); await page.title()"

# Bash (arbitrary commands in the sandbox)
firecrawl browser execute --bash "ls /tmp"

# Launch with extended TTL
firecrawl browser launch --ttl 900 --ttl-inactivity 120

# JSON output
firecrawl browser execute --json "snapshot"

config - Configure settings

# Configure with custom API URL
firecrawl config --api-url https://firecrawl.mycompany.com
firecrawl config --api-url http://localhost:3002 --api-key fc-xxx

view-config - View current configuration

# View current configuration and authentication status
firecrawl view-config

Shows authentication status and stored credentials location.

login / logout

# Login
firecrawl login
firecrawl login --method browser
firecrawl login --method manual
firecrawl login --api-key fc-xxx

# Login to self-hosted instance
firecrawl login --api-url https://firecrawl.mycompany.com
firecrawl login --api-url http://localhost:3002 --api-key fc-xxx

# Logout
firecrawl logout

Global Options

These options work with any command:

Option	Description
--status	Show version, auth, concurrency, and credits
-k, --api-key <key>	Use specific API key
--api-url <url>	Use custom API URL (for self-hosted/local development)
-V, --version	Show version
-h, --help	Show help

Check Status

firecrawl --status

  🔥 firecrawl cli v1.4.0

  ● Authenticated via stored credentials
  Concurrency: 0/100 jobs (parallel scrape limit)
  Credits: 500,000 / 1,000,000 (50% left this cycle)

Output Handling

Stdout vs File

# Output to stdout (default)
firecrawl https://example.com

# Pipe to another command
firecrawl https://example.com | head -50

# Save to file
firecrawl https://example.com -o output.md

# JSON output
firecrawl https://example.com --format links --pretty

Format Behavior

• Single format: Outputs raw content (markdown text, HTML, etc.)
• Multiple formats: Outputs JSON with all requested data

# Raw markdown output
firecrawl https://example.com --format markdown

# JSON output with multiple formats
firecrawl https://example.com --format markdown,links,images

Tips & Tricks

Scrape multiple URLs

# Just pass multiple URLs -- results are saved to .firecrawl/
firecrawl scrape https://firecrawl.dev https://firecrawl.dev/blog https://docs.firecrawl.dev

Combine with other tools

# Extract links and process with jq
firecrawl https://example.com --format links | jq '.links[].url'

# Convert to PDF (with pandoc)
firecrawl https://example.com | pandoc -o document.pdf

# Search within scraped content
firecrawl https://example.com | grep -i "keyword"

CI/CD Usage

# Set API key via environment
export FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=${{ secrets.FIRECRAWL_API_KEY }}
firecrawl crawl https://docs.example.com --wait -o docs.json

# Use self-hosted instance
export FIRECRAWL_API_URL=${{ secrets.FIRECRAWL_API_URL }}
firecrawl scrape https://example.com -o output.md

download - Bulk Site Download

A convenience command that combines map + scrape to save a site as local files. Maps the site first to discover pages, then scrapes each one into nested directories under .firecrawl/. All scrape options work with download. Run without flags for an interactive wizard that walks you through format, screenshot, and path selection.

# Interactive wizard (picks format, screenshots, paths for you)
firecrawl download https://docs.firecrawl.dev

# Download with screenshots
firecrawl download https://docs.firecrawl.dev --screenshot --limit 20 -y

# Full page screenshots
firecrawl download https://docs.firecrawl.dev --full-page-screenshot --limit 20 -y

# Multiple formats (each saved as its own file per page)
firecrawl download https://docs.firecrawl.dev --format markdown,links --screenshot --limit 20 -y
# Creates per page: index.md + links.txt + screenshot.png

# Download as HTML
firecrawl download https://docs.firecrawl.dev --html --limit 20 -y

# Main content only
firecrawl download https://docs.firecrawl.dev --only-main-content --limit 50 -y

# Filter to specific paths
firecrawl download https://docs.firecrawl.dev --include-paths "/features,/sdks"

# Skip localized pages
firecrawl download https://docs.firecrawl.dev --exclude-paths "/zh,/ja,/fr,/es,/pt-BR"

# Include subdomains
firecrawl download https://firecrawl.dev --allow-subdomains

# Combine everything
firecrawl download https://docs.firecrawl.dev \
  --include-paths "/features,/sdks" \
  --exclude-paths "/zh,/ja,/fr,/es,/pt-BR" \
  --only-main-content \
  --screenshot \
  -y

Download Options

Option	Description
--limit <number>	Max pages to download
--search <query>	Filter pages by search query
--include-paths <paths>	Only download matching paths (comma-separated)
--exclude-paths <paths>	Skip matching paths (comma-separated)
--allow-subdomains	Include subdomains when mapping
-y, --yes	Skip confirmation prompt and wizard

All scrape options also work with download (formats, screenshots, tags, geo-targeting, etc.)

Output Structure

Each format is saved as its own file per page:

.firecrawl/
  docs.firecrawl.dev/
    features/
      scrape/
        index.md           # markdown content
        links.txt          # one link per line
        screenshot.png     # actual PNG image
      crawl/
        index.md
        screenshot.png
    sdks/
      python/
        index.md

Telemetry

The CLI collects anonymous usage data during authentication to help improve the product:

• CLI version, OS, and Node.js version
• Detect development tools (e.g., Cursor, VS Code, Claude Code)

No command data, URLs, or file contents are collected via the CLI.

To disable telemetry, set the environment variable:

export FIRECRAWL_NO_TELEMETRY=1

Documentation

For more details, visit the Firecrawl Documentation.