---
title: "Unified single-fetch, multi-format extraction. One fetch serves every requested format: markdown, html, rawHtml, text, links, metadata. A bot-defence challenge page returns success: false with blocked.vendor whatever its HTTP status; an empty shell or an error placeholder served as HTTP 200 is a failure too. Neither is charged. A PDF or other binary returns 415 UNSUPPORTED_CONTENT_TYPE, unbilled; use process_document. A success whose markdown is empty carries a warning saying so. With escalate: true that same call renders the page once in a stealth browser and returns the formats from it, instead of returning the block."
method: POST
path: "/tools/scrape"
tags: ["tools"]
---

# Unified single-fetch, multi-format extraction. One fetch serves every requested format: markdown, html, rawHtml, text, links, metadata. A bot-defence challenge page returns success: false with blocked.vendor whatever its HTTP status; an empty shell or an error placeholder served as HTTP 200 is a failure too. Neither is charged. A PDF or other binary returns 415 UNSUPPORTED_CONTENT_TYPE, unbilled; use process_document. A success whose markdown is empty carries a warning saying so. With escalate: true that same call renders the page once in a stealth browser and returns the formats from it, instead of returning the block.

`POST /tools/scrape`

## Request

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

## Request body

- ScrapeRequest
  - `url` string, uri, required: The URL to scrape
  - `formats` union[]: Output formats: markdown, html, rawHtml, text, links, metadata, plus two query-scoped object formats. { type: 'highlights', query, max_highlights (1-50, default 10), mode } returns the sentences and code blocks matching the query, verbatim, each with an offset and length into the markdown format of the same call (table rows too: markdown keeps data tables as GFM pipe tables). { type: 'question', question, mode } returns an answer assembled from the best-matching passages, with its evidence. At most one of each per request. mode defaults to 'extractive'; mode 'model' needs an LLM and is rejected here, as are the 'screenshot' and 'json-schema' formats, which require the CrawlForge MCP server (browser/LLM).
    - union
      - 'markdown' | 'html' | 'rawHtml' | 'text' | 'links' | 'metadata' | 'screenshot' | 'json-schema'
      - object
        - `type` 'highlights', required
        - `query` string, required
        - `max_highlights` integer
        - `mode` 'extractive' | 'model'
      - object
        - `type` 'question', required
        - `question` string, required
        - `mode` 'extractive' | 'model'
  - `onlyMainContent` boolean: Strip navigation, headers, and footers, returning only the main content
  - `respect_robots` boolean
  - `escalate` boolean: Retry a blocked page in a stealth browser, in this same call. The plain fetch always runs first; only if it meets a bot wall, an empty shell or an error placeholder does the stealth render run, and the requested formats are then derived from the rendered HTML. The response carries escalated: true|false whenever this is set, plus stealth: { engine, vendor_detected } when the render ran. It costs the escalation add-on only when it ran. The stage needs the CrawlForge execution backend: where that is not configured it returns 503 TOOL_NOT_AVAILABLE and charges nothing. robots.txt is respected on the escalated path too, matched against the same CrawlForge product token.
  - `escalate_engine` 'playwright' | 'camoufox': Browser engine for the escalated render (camoufox only where installed on the backend). Ignored when no escalation runs.
  - `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; 2 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)