tools

Detect content changes on a page by comparing it against a stored baseline (create_baseline, then compare), or create a hosted monitor that checks it on a schedule (monitor)

post/tools/track_changes

Request

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

Request body

urlstring uri required

URL of the webpage to track

operation'create_baseline' | 'compare' | 'monitor'

create_baseline captures and stores the current page text (kept 90 days). compare fetches the page again and diffs it against the stored baseline. monitor creates a hosted monitor that fetches and compares the page on a schedule; creating it costs nothing, and each scheduled check bills 3 credits per target that was fetched and compared. Manage monitors at /api/v1/monitors or in the dashboard.

selectorstring

CSS selector to scope tracking to part of the page (e.g. ".pricing-table"). Baselines are stored per (url, selector) pair; 422 if the selector matches nothing.

update_baselineboolean

compare only: overwrite the stored baseline with the freshly fetched content after diffing

respect_robotsboolean

create_baseline and compare: fetch the origin's robots.txt and refuse the URL if it disallows CrawlForge. A missing or unreachable robots.txt is treated as no restrictions. Returns 403 ROBOTS_DISALLOWED, and no credits are charged. Hosted monitors always respect robots.txt; a disallowed target is reported as a page error.

schedulestring

monitor only: five-field cron expression, evaluated in UTC, for how often the monitor checks the page (default "0 * * * *", hourly). Consecutive runs must be at least 5 minutes apart; 400 VALIDATION_ERROR otherwise.

notify_emailsstring[]

monitor only: up to 5 addresses that receive a summary email when a check finds new, changed, blocked or errored pages

webhook_urlstring uri

monitor only: an https endpoint that receives a signed POST (monitor.page per changed page, then monitor.check.completed) after every check. The signing secret is returned once, as webhook_secret on the created monitor.

Response

The tool's result; 3 credits charged (see x-credits-note and x-extra for add-ons).

successtrue required
dataobject 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_usedinteger required

Credits charged for this call: the operation's x-credits, plus any add-on x-credits-note or x-extra describes.

credits_remaininginteger required

The account's credit balance after this call.

processing_timeinteger required

Server-side processing time in milliseconds.

warningsstring[]

Non-fatal notes: a robots.txt override that was recorded, a format that could not be produced, a redaction that changed the payload.

Changes

No recorded changes to this operation across all 1 revision of this API.