Installation

To install the Firecrawl Node SDK, you can use npm:

Node
npm install @mendable/firecrawl-js

Usage

  1. Get an API key from firecrawl.dev
  2. Set the API key as an environment variable named FIRECRAWL_API_KEY or pass it as a parameter to the FirecrawlApp class.

Here’s an example of how to use the SDK with error handling:

Node
import FirecrawlApp, { CrawlParams, CrawlStatusResponse } from '@mendable/firecrawl-js';

const app = new FirecrawlApp({apiKey: "fc-YOUR_API_KEY"});

// Scrape a website
const scrapeResponse = await app.scrapeUrl('https://firecrawl.dev', {
  formats: ['markdown', 'html'],
});

if (!scrapeResponse.success) {
  throw new Error(`Failed to scrape: ${scrapeResponse.error}`)
}

console.log(scrapeResponse)

// Crawl a website
const crawlResponse = await app.crawlUrl('https://firecrawl.dev', {
  limit: 100,
  scrapeOptions: {
    formats: ['markdown', 'html'],
  }
});

if (!crawlResponse.success) {
  throw new Error(`Failed to crawl: ${crawlResponse.error}`)
}

console.log(crawlResponse)

Scraping a URL

To scrape a single URL with error handling, use the scrapeUrl method. It takes the URL as a parameter and returns the scraped data as a dictionary.

Node
// Scrape a website:
const scrapeResult = await app.scrapeUrl('firecrawl.dev', { formats: ['markdown', 'html'] });

if (!scrapeResult.success) {
  throw new Error(`Failed to scrape: ${scrapeResult.error}`)
}

console.log(scrapeResult)

Crawling a Website

To crawl a website with error handling, use the crawlUrl method. It takes the starting URL and optional parameters as arguments. The params argument allows you to specify additional options for the crawl job, such as the maximum number of pages to crawl, allowed domains, and the output format.

Node
const crawlResponse = await app.crawlUrl('https://firecrawl.dev', {
  limit: 100,
  scrapeOptions: {
    formats: ['markdown', 'html'],
  }
})

if (!crawlResponse.success) {
  throw new Error(`Failed to crawl: ${crawlResponse.error}`)
}

console.log(crawlResponse)

Asynchronous Crawling

To crawl a website asynchronously, use the crawlUrlAsync method. It returns the crawl ID which you can use to check the status of the crawl job. It takes the starting URL and optional parameters as arguments. The params argument allows you to specify additional options for the crawl job, such as the maximum number of pages to crawl, allowed domains, and the output format.

Node
const crawlResponse = await app.asyncCrawlUrl('https://firecrawl.dev', {
  limit: 100,
  scrapeOptions: {
    formats: ['markdown', 'html'],
  }
});

if (!crawlResponse.success) {
  throw new Error(`Failed to crawl: ${crawlResponse.error}`)
}

console.log(crawlResponse)

Checking Crawl Status

To check the status of a crawl job with error handling, use the checkCrawlStatus method. It takes the ID as a parameter and returns the current status of the crawl job.

Node
const crawlResponse = await app.checkCrawlStatus("<crawl_id>");

if (!crawlResponse.success) {
  throw new Error(`Failed to check crawl status: ${crawlResponse.error}`)
}

console.log(crawlResponse)

Mapping a Website

To map a website with error handling, use the mapUrl method. It takes the starting URL as a parameter and returns the mapped data as a dictionary.

Node
const mapResult = await app.mapUrl('https://firecrawl.dev');

if (!mapResult.success) {
  throw new Error(`Failed to map: ${mapResult.error}`)
}

console.log(mapResult)

Crawling a Website with WebSockets

To crawl a website with WebSockets, use the crawlUrlAndWatch method. It takes the starting URL and optional parameters as arguments. The params argument allows you to specify additional options for the crawl job, such as the maximum number of pages to crawl, allowed domains, and the output format.

Node
const watch = await app.crawlUrlAndWatch('mendable.ai', { excludePaths: ['blog/*'], limit: 5});

watch.addEventListener("document", doc => {
  console.log("DOC", doc.detail);
});

watch.addEventListener("error", err => {
  console.error("ERR", err.detail.error);
});

watch.addEventListener("done", state => {
  console.log("DONE", state.detail.status);
});

Error Handling

The SDK handles errors returned by the Firecrawl API and raises appropriate exceptions. If an error occurs during a request, an exception will be raised with a descriptive error message. The examples above demonstrate how to handle these errors using try/catch blocks.