​
Installation

To install the Firecrawl Python SDK, you can use pip:

Python
pip install firecrawl-py

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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:

Python
from firecrawl import FirecrawlApp

app = FirecrawlApp(api_key="fc-YOUR_API_KEY")

# Scrape a website:
scrape_status = app.scrape_url(
  'https://firecrawl.dev', 
  params={'formats': ['markdown', 'html']}
)
print(scrape_status)

# Crawl a website:
crawl_status = app.crawl_url(
  'https://firecrawl.dev', 
  params={
    'limit': 100, 
    'scrapeOptions': {'formats': ['markdown', 'html']}
  }
)
print(crawl_status)

​
Scraping a URL

To scrape a single URL, use the scrape_url method. It takes the URL as a parameter and returns the scraped data as a dictionary.

Python
# Scrape a website:
scrape_result = app.scrape_url('firecrawl.dev', params={'formats': ['markdown', 'html']})
print(scrape_result)

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Crawling a Website

To crawl a website, use the crawl_url 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.

Python
crawl_status = app.crawl_url(
  'https://firecrawl.dev', 
  params={
    'limit': 100, 
    'scrapeOptions': {'formats': ['markdown', 'html']}
  }, 
  poll_interval=30
)
print(crawl_status)

​
Asynchronous Crawling

To crawl a website asynchronously, use the crawl_url_async 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.

Python
crawl_status = app.async_crawl_url(
  'https://firecrawl.dev', 
  params={
    'limit': 100, 
    'scrapeOptions': {'formats': ['markdown', 'html']}
  }
)
print(crawl_status)

​
Checking Crawl Status

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

Python
crawl_status = app.check_crawl_status("<crawl_id>")
print(crawl_status)

​
Map a Website

Use map_url to generate a list of URLs from a website. The params argument let you customize the mapping process, including options to exclude subdomains or to utilize the sitemap.

Python
# Map a website:
map_result = app.map_url('https://firecrawl.dev')
print(map_result)

​
Crawling a Website with WebSockets

To crawl a website with WebSockets, use the crawl_url_and_watch 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.

Python
# inside an async function...
nest_asyncio.apply()

# Define event handlers
def on_document(detail):
    print("DOC", detail)

def on_error(detail):
    print("ERR", detail['error'])

def on_done(detail):
    print("DONE", detail['status'])

    # Function to start the crawl and watch process
async def start_crawl_and_watch():
    # Initiate the crawl job and get the watcher
    watcher = app.crawl_url_and_watch('firecrawl.dev', { 'excludePaths': ['blog/*'], 'limit': 5 })

    # Add event listeners
    watcher.add_event_listener("document", on_document)
    watcher.add_event_listener("error", on_error)
    watcher.add_event_listener("done", on_done)

    # Start the watcher
    await watcher.connect()

# Run the event loop
await start_crawl_and_watch()

​
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.

OverviewNode