Tavily Crawl

Crawl any website and save pages as local markdown files. Use when you need to download documentation, knowledge bases, or web content for offline access or analysis. No code required - just provide a URL.

Crawl Skill

Crawl websites to extract content from multiple pages. Ideal for documentation, knowledge bases, and site-wide content extraction.

Authentication

The script uses OAuth via the Tavily MCP server. No manual setup required - on first run, it will:

1. Check for existing tokens in ~/.mcp-auth/
2. If none found, automatically open your browser for OAuth authentication

Note: You must have an existing Tavily account. The OAuth flow only supports login — account creation is not available through this flow. Sign up at tavily.com first if you don't have an account.

Alternative: API Key

If you prefer using an API key, get one at https://tavily.com and add to ~/.claude/settings.json:

json

{
  "env": {
    "TAVILY_API_KEY": "tvly-your-api-key-here"
  }
}

Quick Start

Using the Script

bash

./scripts/crawl.sh '<json>' [output_dir]

Examples:

bash

# Basic crawl
./scripts/crawl.sh '{"url": "https://docs.example.com"}'

# Deeper crawl with limits
./scripts/crawl.sh '{"url": "https://docs.example.com", "max_depth": 2, "limit": 50}'

# Save to files
./scripts/crawl.sh '{"url": "https://docs.example.com", "max_depth": 2}' ./docs

# Focused crawl with path filters
./scripts/crawl.sh '{"url": "https://example.com", "max_depth": 2, "select_paths": ["/docs/.*", "/api/.*"], "exclude_paths": ["/blog/.*"]}'

# With semantic instructions (for agentic use)
./scripts/crawl.sh '{"url": "https://docs.example.com", "instructions": "Find API documentation", "chunks_per_source": 3}'

When output_dir is provided, each crawled page is saved as a separate markdown file.

Basic Crawl

bash

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/crawl \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://docs.example.com",
    "max_depth": 1,
    "limit": 20
  }'

Focused Crawl with Instructions

bash

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/crawl \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://docs.example.com",
    "max_depth": 2,
    "instructions": "Find API documentation and code examples",
    "chunks_per_source": 3,
    "select_paths": ["/docs/.*", "/api/.*"]
  }'

API Reference

Endpoint

text

POST https://api.tavily.com/crawl

Headers

Header	Value
Authorization	Bearer <TAVILY_API_KEY>
Content-Type	application/json

Request Body

Field	Type	Default	Description
url	string	Required	Root URL to begin crawling
max_depth	integer	1	Levels deep to crawl (1-5)
max_breadth	integer	20	Links per page
limit	integer	50	Total pages cap
instructions	string	null	Natural language guidance for focus
chunks_per_source	integer	3	Chunks per page (1-5, requires instructions)
extract_depth	string	"basic"	basic or advanced
format	string	"markdown"	markdown or text
select_paths	array	null	Regex patterns to include
exclude_paths	array	null	Regex patterns to exclude
allow_external	boolean	true	Include external domain links
timeout	float	150	Max wait (10-150 seconds)

Response Format

json

{
  "base_url": "https://docs.example.com",
  "results": [
    {
      "url": "https://docs.example.com/page",
      "raw_content": "# Page Title\n\nContent..."
    }
  ],
  "response_time": 12.5
}

Depth vs Performance

Depth	Typical Pages	Time
1	10-50	Seconds
2	50-500	Minutes
3	500-5000	Many minutes

Start with max_depth=1 and increase only if needed.

Crawl for Context vs Data Collection

For agentic use (feeding results into context): Always use instructions + chunks_per_source. This returns only relevant chunks instead of full pages, preventing context window explosion.

For data collection (saving to files): Omit chunks_per_source to get full page content.

Examples

For Context: Agentic Research (Recommended)

Use when feeding crawl results into an LLM context:

bash

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/crawl \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://docs.example.com",
    "max_depth": 2,
    "instructions": "Find API documentation and authentication guides",
    "chunks_per_source": 3
  }'

Returns only the most relevant chunks (max 500 chars each) per page - fits in context without overwhelming it.

For Context: Targeted Technical Docs

bash

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/crawl \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "max_depth": 2,
    "instructions": "Find all documentation about authentication and security",
    "chunks_per_source": 3,
    "select_paths": ["/docs/.*", "/api/.*"]
  }'

For Data Collection: Full Page Archive

Use when saving content to files for later processing:

bash

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/crawl \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://example.com/blog",
    "max_depth": 2,
    "max_breadth": 50,
    "select_paths": ["/blog/.*"],
    "exclude_paths": ["/blog/tag/.*", "/blog/category/.*"]
  }'

Returns full page content - use the script with output_dir to save as markdown files.

Map API (URL Discovery)

Use map instead of crawl when you only need URLs, not content:

bash

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.tavily.com/map \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TAVILY_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "url": "https://docs.example.com",
    "max_depth": 2,
    "instructions": "Find all API docs and guides"
  }'

Returns URLs only (faster than crawl):

json

{
  "base_url": "https://docs.example.com",
  "results": [
    "https://docs.example.com/api/auth",
    "https://docs.example.com/guides/quickstart"
  ]
}

Tips

• Always use chunks_per_source for agentic workflows - prevents context explosion when feeding results to LLMs
• Omit chunks_per_source only for data collection - when saving full pages to files
• Start conservative (max_depth=1, limit=20) and scale up
• Use path patterns to focus on relevant sections
• Use Map first to understand site structure before full crawl
• Always set a limit to prevent runaway crawls