Crawl Skill Skill | Agent Skills

Crawl Skill

Crawl websites to extract content from multiple pages. Ideal for documentation, knowledge bases, and site-wide content extraction.

Authentication

The script uses OAuth via the Tavily MCP server. No manual setup required - on first run, it will:

Check for existing tokens in ~/.mcp-auth/
If none found, automatically open your browser for OAuth authentication

Note: You must have an existing Tavily account. The OAuth flow only supports login — account creation is not available through this flow. Sign up at tavily.com first if you don't have an account.

Alternative: API Key

If you prefer using an API key, get one at https://tavily.com and add to ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "env": {
    "TAVILY_API_KEY": "tvly-your-api-key-here"
  }
}

Quick Start

Using the Script

./scripts/crawl.sh '<json>' [output_dir]

Examples:

# Basic crawl
./scripts/crawl.sh '{"url": "https://docs.example.com"}'

# Deeper crawl with limits
./scripts/crawl.sh '{"url": "https://docs.example.com", "max_depth": 2, "limit": 50}'

# Save to files
./scripts/crawl.sh '{"url": "https://docs.example.com", "max_depth": 2}' ./docs

# Focused crawl with path filters
./scripts/crawl.sh '{"url": "https://example.com", "max_depth": 2, "select_paths": ["/docs/.*", "/api/.*"], "exclude_paths": ["/blog/.*"]}'

# With semantic instructions (for agentic use)
./scripts/crawl.sh '{"url": "https://docs.example.com", "instructions": "Find API documentation", "chunks_per_source": 3}'

When output_dir is provided, each crawled page is saved as a separate markdown file.

Basic Crawl

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/crawl \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://docs.example.com",
    "max_depth": 1,
    "limit": 20
  }'

Focused Crawl with Instructions

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/crawl \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://docs.example.com",
    "max_depth": 2,
    "instructions": "Find API documentation and code examples",
    "chunks_per_source": 3,
    "select_paths": ["/docs/.*", "/api/.*"]
  }'

API Reference

Endpoint

POST https://api.tavily.com/crawl

Headers

| Header | Value | |--------|-------| | Authorization | Bearer <TAVILY_API_KEY> | | Content-Type | application/json |

Request Body

| Field | Type | Default | Description | |-------|------|---------|-------------| | url | string | Required | Root URL to begin crawling | | max_depth | integer | 1 | Levels deep to crawl (1-5) | | max_breadth | integer | 20 | Links per page | | limit | integer | 50 | Total pages cap | | instructions | string | null | Natural language guidance for focus | | chunks_per_source | integer | 3 | Chunks per page (1-5, requires instructions) | | extract_depth | string | "basic" | basic or advanced | | format | string | "markdown" | markdown or text | | select_paths | array | null | Regex patterns to include | | exclude_paths | array | null | Regex patterns to exclude | | allow_external | boolean | true | Include external domain links | | timeout | float | 150 | Max wait (10-150 seconds) |

Response Format

{
  "base_url": "https://docs.example.com",
  "results": [
    {
      "url": "https://docs.example.com/page",
      "raw_content": "# Page Title\n\nContent..."
    }
  ],
  "response_time": 12.5
}

Depth vs Performance

| Depth | Typical Pages | Time | |-------|---------------|------| | 1 | 10-50 | Seconds | | 2 | 50-500 | Minutes | | 3 | 500-5000 | Many minutes |

Start with max_depth=1 and increase only if needed.

Crawl for Context vs Data Collection

For agentic use (feeding results into context): Always use instructions + chunks_per_source. This returns only relevant chunks instead of full pages, preventing context window explosion.

For data collection (saving to files): Omit chunks_per_source to get full page content.

Examples

For Context: Agentic Research (Recommended)

Use when feeding crawl results into an LLM context:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/crawl \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://docs.example.com",
    "max_depth": 2,
    "instructions": "Find API documentation and authentication guides",
    "chunks_per_source": 3
  }'

Returns only the most relevant chunks (max 500 chars each) per page - fits in context without overwhelming it.

For Context: Targeted Technical Docs

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/crawl \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "max_depth": 2,
    "instructions": "Find all documentation about authentication and security",
    "chunks_per_source": 3,
    "select_paths": ["/docs/.*", "/api/.*"]
  }'

For Data Collection: Full Page Archive

Use when saving content to files for later processing:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/crawl \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://example.com/blog",
    "max_depth": 2,
    "max_breadth": 50,
    "select_paths": ["/blog/.*"],
    "exclude_paths": ["/blog/tag/.*", "/blog/category/.*"]
  }'

Returns full page content - use the script with output_dir to save as markdown files.

Map API (URL Discovery)

Use map instead of crawl when you only need URLs, not content:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/map \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://docs.example.com",
    "max_depth": 2,
    "instructions": "Find all API docs and guides"
  }'

Returns URLs only (faster than crawl):

{
  "base_url": "https://docs.example.com",
  "results": [
    "https://docs.example.com/api/auth",
    "https://docs.example.com/guides/quickstart"
  ]
}

Tips

Always use chunks_per_source for agentic workflows - prevents context explosion when feeding results to LLMs
Omit chunks_per_source only for data collection - when saving full pages to files
Start conservative (max_depth=1, limit=20) and scale up
Use path patterns to focus on relevant sections
Use Map first to understand site structure before full crawl
Always set a limit to prevent runaway crawls

Agent Skills: Crawl Skill

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