---
title: "Crawl websites deeply using breadth-first search to discover and extract content"
method: POST
path: "/tools/crawl_deep"
tags: ["tools"]
---

# Crawl websites deeply using breadth-first search to discover and extract content

`POST /tools/crawl_deep`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://www.crawlforge.dev/api/v1`
- URL: `https://www.crawlforge.dev/api/v1/tools/crawl_deep`
- Auth: API key in header `X-API-Key`

## Request body

- CrawlDeepRequest
  - `start_url` string, uri, required: The starting URL for the crawl
  - `max_pages` number: Maximum number of pages to crawl (1-100)
  - `max_depth` number: Maximum depth to crawl (1-5)
  - `same_domain_only` boolean: Only crawl pages on the same domain
  - `respect_robots` boolean: Fetch each origin's robots.txt and skip URLs it disallows for CrawlForge. A missing or unreachable robots.txt is treated as no restrictions. Returns 403 ROBOTS_DISALLOWED when start_url itself is disallowed, with no credits charged; URLs disallowed mid-crawl are skipped and counted in warnings. Setting this to false is recorded against your API key.
  - `respect_robots_txt` boolean: Alias of respect_robots, kept for callers that already send it. Either parameter set to false disables the gate.
  - `crawl_delay` number: Delay between requests to the same host, in milliseconds (0-5000). Resolved against the site's own robots.txt Crawl-delay as the longer of the two, so the site wins when it asks for more and the two never stack. A delay that will not fit in the crawl timeout skips the page rather than overrunning the budget.
  - `timeout` number: Total crawl timeout in milliseconds (1000-60000)
  - `max_inline_chars` integer: Largest result returned inline, in characters of its JSON (1000-10000000; env CRAWLFORGE_MAX_INLINE_CHARS sets the default). Over it, the result is stored for 1 hour and the response carries a preview, a result_handle, total_chars and truncated: true; read the rest with read_result (1 credit).
  - `redact_pii` union: Remove personal data from the text this call returns, before it is stored or sent back. true is shorthand for { mode: "fast" }: every entity, tagged. As an object: entities (any of EMAIL, PHONE, FINANCIAL, SECRET; omitted or empty means all four, and any other name is a 400 rather than a silent no-op), replace_style ("tag" → <EMAIL>, "mask" → [REDACTED], "remove" → nothing; default "tag") and mode ("fast", the default, is regex-only and costs no extra credits; "model" covers PERSON and LOCATION, needs an LLM and is rejected here — use the CrawlForge MCP server). The response carries redaction: { entities, count, mode } inside data, saying what was removed. Detection is deliberately conservative: a card number must pass Luhn and an IBAN mod-97, so a false positive cannot silently destroy real page content. URLs, queries and identifiers the response uses to name what was fetched are left intact, and counters derived from the text (content_length, word_count, character_count) describe the text as it was extracted, before redaction.
    - boolean
    - object
      - `entities` string[]
      - `replace_style` 'tag' | 'mask' | 'remove'
      - `mode` 'fast' | 'model'

## Response `200`

The tool's result; 4 credits charged (see x-credits-note and x-extra for add-ons).

- ToolSuccess: The envelope every tool returns on success. Credits are deducted only after the tool succeeded, so credits_used is the price of this call and an error response never charges.
  - `success` true, required
  - `data` object, required: The tool's result. Its shape is tool-specific and documented on the tool's docs page (x-docs-url on the operation).
  - `credits_used` integer, required: Credits charged for this call: the operation's x-credits, plus any add-on x-credits-note or x-extra describes.
  - `credits_remaining` integer, required: The account's credit balance after this call.
  - `processing_time` integer, required: Server-side processing time in milliseconds.
  - `warnings` string[]: Non-fatal notes: a robots.txt override that was recorded, a format that could not be produced, a redaction that changed the payload.

## Other responses

- `400`: VALIDATION_ERROR: the body does not match the request schema.
- `401`: MISSING_API_KEY or INVALID_API_KEY.
- `402`: INSUFFICIENT_CREDITS: the balance does not cover the tool's base price. X-Auto-Recharge-Triggered says whether an automatic recharge was started; retry once it lands.
- `429`: RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED: your plan's rate limit. Retry-After: 60.
- `500`: TOOL_ERROR, INTERNAL_ERROR or CREDIT_DEDUCTION_FAILED.
- `default`: Any other error. Which of 403, 404, 413, 422, 501, 502, 503 and 504 a tool can return depends on what it does (fetching a page, calling the execution backend, reading stored results); the code vocabulary is listed on the ErrorResponse schema.

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/crawlforge/apis/crawlforge-rest-api.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/crawlforge/apis/crawlforge-rest-api/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/crawlforge/apis/crawlforge-rest-api/revisions/a5532fa8d5d5?raw)