v-firecrawl/apps/js-sdk/firecrawl/README.md

# Firecrawl JavaScript SDK

The Firecrawl JavaScript SDK is a library that allows you to easily scrape and crawl websites, and output the data in a format ready for use with language models (LLMs). It provides a simple and intuitive interface for interacting with the Firecrawl API.

## Installation

To install the Firecrawl JavaScript SDK, you can use npm:

```bash
npm install @mendable/firecrawl-js
```

## Usage

1. Get an API key from [firecrawl.dev](https://firecrawl.dev)
2. Set the API key as an environment variable named `FIRECRAWL_API_KEY` or pass it as a parameter to the `FirecrawlApp` class.


Here's an example of how to use the SDK with error handling:

```js
  import FirecrawlApp from '@mendable/firecrawl-js';

  async function main() {
    try {
      // Initialize the FirecrawlApp with your API key
      const app = new FirecrawlApp({ apiKey: "YOUR_API_KEY" });

      // Scrape a single URL
      const url = 'https://mendable.ai';
      const scrapedData = await app.scrapeUrl(url);
      console.log(scrapedData);
      
      // Crawl a website
      const crawlUrl = 'https://mendable.ai';
      const params = {
      crawlerOptions: {
        excludes: ['blog/'],
        includes: [], // leave empty for all pages 
        limit: 1000,
        },
        pageOptions: {
            onlyMainContent: true
        }
      };

      const crawlResult = await app.crawlUrl(crawlUrl, params);
      console.log(crawlResult);

    } catch (error) {
      console.error('An error occurred:', error.message);
    }
  }

  main();
```

### Scraping a URL

To scrape a single URL with error handling, use the `scrapeUrl` method. It takes the URL as a parameter and returns the scraped data as a dictionary.

```js
  async function scrapeExample() {
    try {
      const url = 'https://example.com';
      const scrapedData = await app.scrapeUrl(url);
      console.log(scrapedData);

    } catch (error) {
      console.error(
        'Error occurred while scraping:',
        error.message
      );
    }
  }
  
  scrapeExample();
```

### Extracting structured data from a URL

With LLM extraction, you can easily extract structured data from any URL. We support zod schemas to make it easier for you too. Here is how you to use it:

```js
import { z } from "zod";

const zodSchema = z.object({
  top: z
    .array(
      z.object({
        title: z.string(),
        points: z.number(),
        by: z.string(),
        commentsURL: z.string(),
      })
    )
    .length(5)
    .describe("Top 5 stories on Hacker News"),
});

let llmExtractionResult = await app.scrapeUrl("https://news.ycombinator.com", {
  extractorOptions: { extractionSchema: zodSchema },
});

console.log(llmExtractionResult.data.llm_extraction);
```

### Search for a query

Used to search the web, get the most relevant results, scrap each page and return the markdown.

```js
query = 'what is mendable?'
searchResult = app.search(query)
```

### Crawling a Website

To crawl a website with error handling, use the `crawlUrl` method. It takes the starting URL and optional parameters as arguments. The `params` argument allows you to specify additional options for the crawl job, such as the maximum number of pages to crawl, allowed domains, and the output format.

```js
async function crawlExample() {
  try {
    const crawlUrl = 'https://example.com';
    const params = {
      crawlerOptions: {
        excludes: ['blog/'],
        includes: [], // leave empty for all pages
        limit: 1000,
      },
      pageOptions: {
        onlyMainContent: true
      }
    };
    const waitUntilDone = true;
    const timeout = 5;
    const crawlResult = await app.crawlUrl(
      crawlUrl,
      params,
      waitUntilDone,
      timeout
    );

    console.log(crawlResult);

  } catch (error) {
    console.error(
      'Error occurred while crawling:',
      error.message
    );
  }
}

crawlExample();
```


### Checking Crawl Status

To check the status of a crawl job with error handling, use the `checkCrawlStatus` method. It takes the job ID as a parameter and returns the current status of the crawl job.

```js
async function checkStatusExample(jobId) {
  try {
    const status = await app.checkCrawlStatus(jobId);
    console.log(status);

  } catch (error) {
    console.error(
      'Error occurred while checking crawl status:',
      error.message
    );
  }
}
// Example usage, assuming you have a jobId
checkStatusExample('your_job_id_here');
```

## Running Locally
To use the SDK when running Firecrawl locally, you can change the initial Firecrawl app instance to:
```js
const app = new FirecrawlApp({ apiKey: "YOUR_API_KEY", apiUrl: "http://localhost:3002" });
```

## Error Handling

The SDK handles errors returned by the Firecrawl API and raises appropriate exceptions. If an error occurs during a request, an exception will be raised with a descriptive error message. The examples above demonstrate how to handle these errors using `try/catch` blocks.

## Contributing

Contributions to the Firecrawl JavaScript SDK are welcome! If you find any issues or have suggestions for improvements, please open an issue or submit a pull request on the GitHub repository.

## License

The Firecrawl JavaScript SDK is open-source and released under the [MIT License](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT).