Firecrawl

Use this skill for unauthenticated public web ingestion when HTTP fetch and server-side parsing are enough. Firecrawl is the cheap path for public pages and docs. Use the browser skill instead when the task needs login, interaction, form filling, visual inspection, or client-side state. Do not use Firecrawl to bypass access controls.

Credential Rules

For managed mode, set or update the Firecrawl API key in this order:

1. Browser admin: open the active HybridClaw admin URL ending in /admin/secrets and set FIRECRAWL_API_KEY.
2. Browser /chat or TUI fallback: /secret set FIRECRAWL_API_KEY "<fc-api-key>".
3. Local console fallback:

hybridclaw secret set FIRECRAWL_API_KEY "<fc-api-key>"

For a self-hosted Firecrawl instance, set the gateway-reachable base URL in the runtime environment or pass it explicitly to the helper:

export FIRECRAWL_SELF_HOST_BASE_URL="http://firecrawl:3002"

The helper accepts base URLs with or without /v2 and normalizes them to the v2 API path. If your self-hosted Firecrawl deployment enables API authentication, set that token separately in the same order:

1. Browser admin: open the active HybridClaw admin URL ending in /admin/secrets and set FIRECRAWL_SELF_HOST_API_KEY.
2. Browser /chat or TUI fallback: /secret set FIRECRAWL_SELF_HOST_API_KEY "<self-host-api-key>".
3. Local console fallback:

hybridclaw secret set FIRECRAWL_SELF_HOST_API_KEY "<self-host-api-key>"

Use HTTPS for any self-host endpoint outside a trusted private network, especially when --self-host-auth is enabled; plain HTTP can expose bearer tokens on untrusted networks.

For live calls, run the colocated helper to build an http_request payload and pass only the emitted httpRequest object to the built-in http_request tool. The helper sets bearerSecretName: "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY" so the gateway injects the managed token server-side. In self-host mode, pass --self-host-auth only when the deployment requires a bearer token; the helper then uses FIRECRAWL_SELF_HOST_API_KEY. Do not use bash/curl for live Firecrawl calls when http_request is available, and never ask the user to paste API keys into chat.

Operations

• scrape.url: scrape one public URL. Default output is markdown.
• crawl.site: start a public site crawl with conservative default limit 25.
• crawl.status: fetch crawl progress and paginated crawl results by job id.
• crawl.cancel: cancel a crawl job by id.
• crawl.active: list active crawls for the authenticated Firecrawl team.
• map.site: return a URL map with conservative default limit 500.
• extract.structured: start a structured extraction job through POST /v2/extract.
• extract.status: fetch extraction status and results by job id.

Both adapters target Firecrawl API v2. The managed adapter sends requests to https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2; the self-host adapter sends the same operations to the configured self-host base URL. Firecrawl self-host deployments may not enable every upstream managed feature; /agent and /browser are intentionally outside this skill surface.

For single-page JSON extraction during scraping, scrape.url can include --schema-json; for the R53.1/R53.2 extract endpoint, use extract.structured and then poll extract.status.

Command Contract

Run the helper with Node:

node skills/firecrawl/firecrawl.cjs --help

Build a managed single-page scrape request:

node skills/firecrawl/firecrawl.cjs --format json http-request scrape.url \
  --url https://example.com/docs \
  --format-name markdown

Build the same request for self-hosted Firecrawl:

node skills/firecrawl/firecrawl.cjs --format json --adapter self-host \
  --base-url http://firecrawl:3002 \
  http-request scrape.url \
  --url https://example.com/docs \
  --format-name markdown

Add --self-host-auth only if the self-hosted deployment requires FIRECRAWL_SELF_HOST_API_KEY.

Build a site crawl request:

node skills/firecrawl/firecrawl.cjs --format json http-request crawl.site \
  --url https://example.com/docs \
  --limit 25 \
  --include-path 'docs/.*'

Check or cancel a crawl:

node skills/firecrawl/firecrawl.cjs --format json http-request crawl.status \
  --id 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

node skills/firecrawl/firecrawl.cjs --format json http-request crawl.cancel \
  --id 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Build a URL map request:

node skills/firecrawl/firecrawl.cjs --format json http-request map.site \
  --url https://example.com \
  --limit 500 \
  --sitemap include

Build a structured extraction request:

node skills/firecrawl/firecrawl.cjs --format json http-request extract.structured \
  --url 'https://example.com/pricing/*' \
  --schema-json '{"type":"object","properties":{"plans":{"type":"array"}}}' \
  --prompt "Extract plan names and prices."

Check an extraction job:

node skills/firecrawl/firecrawl.cjs --format json http-request extract.status \
  --id 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

The helper prints a wrapper such as { "command": "http-request", "httpRequest": { ... } }. Pass only the httpRequest value to the built-in http_request tool.

Policy Defaults

• Target URLs must be http or https and must not embed credentials.
• Managed mode rejects custom API base URLs.
• Self-host mode requires --base-url or FIRECRAWL_SELF_HOST_BASE_URL; API base URLs must be http or https and must not embed credentials.
• crawl.site always emits ignoreRobotsTxt: false.
• The helper rejects --ignore-robots-txt.
• Crawl and map limits are explicit and bounded to reduce surprise cost.
• Use --zero-data-retention only when the Firecrawl team has enabled it for the configured account or self-hosted deployment.

Error Interpretation

• Gateway errors saying FIRECRAWL_API_KEY is not set, unavailable, missing, or unresolved mean the active HybridClaw runtime cannot resolve the stored secret. Ask the operator to set it in the same runtime/session.
• Gateway errors saying FIRECRAWL_API_KEY is blocked by policy mean the secret exists but policy/runtime access blocked injection. Do not ask the operator to set the same secret again.
• Firecrawl 401 or 403 responses mean the gateway injected a token but Firecrawl rejected it or the account cannot use the requested feature.
• Firecrawl 402, 408, 429, or 5xx responses are upstream billing, timeout, rate limit, or service failures. Report the upstream response and retry only when the user asks.
• Self-host errors saying FIRECRAWL_SELF_HOST_BASE_URL is missing mean the operator needs to configure the gateway-reachable Firecrawl API origin.