CLI | Firecrawl

Installation

Install the Firecrawl CLI globally using npm:

CLI

# Install globally with npm
npm install -g firecrawl-cli

If you are using any AI agent like Claude Code, you can install the Firecrawl skill below and the agent will be able to set it up for you.

npx skills add firecrawl/cli

Authentication

Before using the CLI, you need to authenticate with your Firecrawl API key.

CLI

# Interactive login (opens browser or prompts for API key)
firecrawl login

# Login with browser authentication (recommended for agents)
firecrawl login --browser

# Login with API key directly
firecrawl login --api-key fc-YOUR-API-KEY

# Or set via environment variable
export FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-YOUR-API-KEY

View Configuration

CLI

# View current configuration
firecrawl config

Check Status

Verify installation, authentication, and view rate limits:

CLI

firecrawl --status

Output when ready:

  🔥 firecrawl cli v1.0.2

  ● Authenticated via FIRECRAWL_API_KEY
  Concurrency: 0/100 jobs (parallel scrape limit)
  Credits: 500,000 remaining

Concurrency: Maximum parallel jobs. Run parallel operations close to this limit but not above.
Credits: Remaining API credits. Each scrape/crawl consumes credits.

Commands

Scrape

Scrape a single URL and extract its content in various formats.

CLI

# Scrape a URL (default: markdown output)
firecrawl https://example.com

# Or use the explicit scrape command
firecrawl scrape https://example.com

Output Formats

CLI

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

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

# Available formats: markdown, html, rawHtml, links, screenshot, json

Scrape Options

CLI

# Extract only main content (removes navs, footers)
firecrawl https://example.com --only-main-content

# Wait for JavaScript rendering
firecrawl https://example.com --wait-for 3000

# Take a screenshot
firecrawl https://example.com --screenshot

# Include/exclude specific HTML tags
firecrawl https://example.com --include-tags article,main
firecrawl https://example.com --exclude-tags nav,footer

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

# Pretty print JSON output
firecrawl https://example.com --format markdown,links --pretty

Available Options:

Option	Short	Description
`--url <url>`	`-u`	URL to scrape (alternative to positional argument)
`--format <formats>`	`-f`	Output formats (comma-separated): `markdown`, `html`, `rawHtml`, `links`, `screenshot`, `json`
`--html`	`-H`	Shortcut for `--format html`
`--only-main-content`		Extract only main content
`--wait-for <ms>`		Wait time in milliseconds for JS rendering
`--screenshot`		Take a screenshot
`--include-tags <tags>`		HTML tags to include (comma-separated)
`--exclude-tags <tags>`		HTML tags to exclude (comma-separated)
`--output <path>`	`-o`	Save output to file
`--pretty`		Pretty print JSON output

Search

Search the web and optionally scrape the results.

CLI

# Search the web
firecrawl search "web scraping tutorials"

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

# Pretty print results
firecrawl search "machine learning" --pretty

Search Options

CLI

# Search specific sources
firecrawl search "AI" --sources web,news,images

# Search with category filters
firecrawl search "react hooks" --categories github
firecrawl search "machine learning" --categories research,pdf

# Time-based filtering
firecrawl search "tech news" --tbs qdr:h   # Last hour
firecrawl search "tech news" --tbs qdr:d   # Last day
firecrawl search "tech news" --tbs qdr:w   # Last week
firecrawl search "tech news" --tbs qdr:m   # Last month
firecrawl search "tech news" --tbs qdr:y   # Last year

# Location-based search
firecrawl search "restaurants" --location "Berlin,Germany" --country DE

# Search and scrape results
firecrawl search "documentation" --scrape --scrape-formats markdown

# Save to file
firecrawl search "firecrawl" --pretty -o results.json

Available Options:

Option	Description
`--limit <number>`	Maximum results (default: 5, max: 100)
`--sources <sources>`	Sources to search: `web`, `images`, `news` (comma-separated)
`--categories <categories>`	Filter by category: `github`, `research`, `pdf` (comma-separated)
`--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., “Berlin,Germany”)
`--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`	Scrape search results
`--scrape-formats <formats>`	Formats for scraped content (default: markdown)
`--only-main-content`	Include only main content when scraping (default: true)
`--json`	Output as JSON
`--output <path>`	Save output to file
`--pretty`	Pretty print JSON output

Map

Discover all URLs on a website quickly.

CLI

# Discover all URLs on a website
firecrawl map https://example.com

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

# Limit number of URLs
firecrawl map https://example.com --limit 500

Map Options

CLI

# Filter URLs by search query
firecrawl map https://example.com --search "blog"

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

# Control sitemap usage
firecrawl map https://example.com --sitemap include   # Use sitemap
firecrawl map https://example.com --sitemap skip      # Skip sitemap
firecrawl map https://example.com --sitemap only      # Only use sitemap

# Ignore query parameters (dedupe URLs)
firecrawl map https://example.com --ignore-query-parameters

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

Available Options:

Option	Description
`--url <url>`	URL to map (alternative to positional argument)
`--limit <number>`	Maximum URLs to discover
`--search <query>`	Filter URLs by search query
`--sitemap <mode>`	Sitemap handling: `include`, `skip`, `only`
`--include-subdomains`	Include subdomains
`--ignore-query-parameters`	Treat URLs with different params as same
`--json`	Output as JSON
`--output <path>`	Save output to file
`--pretty`	Pretty print JSON output

Crawl

Crawl an entire website starting from a URL.

CLI

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

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

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

Check Crawl Status

CLI

# Check crawl status using job ID
firecrawl crawl <job-id>

# Example with a real job ID
firecrawl crawl 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000

Crawl Options

CLI

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

# Include only specific paths
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --include-paths /blog,/docs --wait

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

# Include subdomains
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --allow-subdomains --wait

# Crawl entire domain
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --crawl-entire-domain --wait

# Rate limiting
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --delay 1000 --max-concurrency 2 --wait

# Custom polling interval and timeout
firecrawl crawl https://example.com --wait --poll-interval 10 --timeout 300

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

Available Options:

Option	Description
`--url <url>`	URL to crawl (alternative to positional argument)
`--wait`	Wait for crawl to complete
`--progress`	Show progress indicator while waiting
`--poll-interval <seconds>`	Polling interval (default: 5)
`--timeout <seconds>`	Timeout when waiting
`--status`	Check status of existing crawl job
`--limit <number>`	Maximum pages to crawl
`--max-depth <number>`	Maximum crawl depth
`--include-paths <paths>`	Paths to include (comma-separated)
`--exclude-paths <paths>`	Paths to exclude (comma-separated)
`--sitemap <mode>`	Sitemap handling: `include`, `skip`, `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>`	Maximum concurrent requests
`--output <path>`	Save output to file
`--pretty`	Pretty print JSON output

Credit Usage

Check your team’s credit balance and usage.

CLI

# View credit usage
firecrawl credit-usage

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

Version

Display the CLI version.

CLI

firecrawl version
# or
firecrawl --version

Global Options

These options are available for all commands:

Option	Short	Description
`--status`		Show version, auth, concurrency, and credits
`--api-key <key>`	`-k`	Override stored API key for this command
`--help`	`-h`	Show help for a command
`--version`	`-V`	Show CLI version

Output Handling

The CLI outputs to stdout by default, making it easy to pipe or redirect:

CLI

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

# Redirect to a file
firecrawl https://example.com > output.md

# Save JSON with pretty formatting
firecrawl https://example.com --format markdown,links --pretty -o data.json

Format Behavior

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

CLI

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

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

Examples

Quick Scrape

CLI

# Get markdown content from a URL
firecrawl https://docs.firecrawl.dev

# Get HTML content
firecrawl https://example.com --html -o page.html

Full Site Crawl

CLI

# Crawl a docs site with limits
firecrawl crawl https://docs.example.com --limit 50 --max-depth 2 --wait --progress -o docs.json

Site Discovery

CLI

# Find all blog posts
firecrawl map https://example.com --search "blog" -o blog-urls.txt

Research Workflow

CLI

# Search and scrape results for research
firecrawl search "machine learning best practices 2024" --scrape --scrape-formats markdown --pretty

Combine with Other Tools

CLI

# Extract URLs from search results
jq -r '.data.web[].url' search-results.json

# Get titles from search results
jq -r '.data.web[] | "\(.title): \(.url)"' search-results.json

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

# Count URLs from map
firecrawl map https://example.com | wc -l

Telemetry

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

CLI version, OS, and Node.js version
Development tool detection (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:

CLI

export FIRECRAWL_NO_TELEMETRY=1

Open Source

The Firecrawl CLI and Skill are open source and available on GitHub: firecrawl/cli

Get Started

New Features

Standard Features

Webhooks

Developer Guides

Use Cases

Contributing

Skill + CLI

Installation

Authentication

View Configuration

Check Status

Commands

Scrape

Output Formats

Scrape Options

Search

Search Options

Map

Map Options

Crawl

Check Crawl Status

Crawl Options

Credit Usage

Version

Global Options

Output Handling

Format Behavior

Examples

Quick Scrape

Full Site Crawl

Site Discovery

Research Workflow

Combine with Other Tools

Telemetry

Open Source

Get Started

New Features

Standard Features

Webhooks

Developer Guides

Use Cases

Contributing

​Installation

​Authentication

​Login

​View Configuration

​Check Status

​Commands

​Scrape

​Output Formats

​Scrape Options

​Search

​Search Options

​Map

​Map Options

​Crawl

​Check Crawl Status

​Crawl Options

​Credit Usage

​Version

​Global Options

​Output Handling

​Format Behavior

​Examples

​Quick Scrape

​Full Site Crawl

​Site Discovery

​Research Workflow

​Combine with Other Tools

​Telemetry

​Open Source

Installation

Authentication

Login

View Configuration

Check Status

Commands

Scrape

Output Formats

Scrape Options

Search

Search Options

Map

Map Options

Crawl

Check Crawl Status

Crawl Options

Credit Usage

Version

Global Options

Output Handling

Format Behavior

Examples

Quick Scrape

Full Site Crawl

Site Discovery

Research Workflow

Combine with Other Tools

Telemetry

Open Source