Get it running
Paste this into the AI that runs on your computer. It does the install, checks it works, and tells you what to type first. If anything fails, paste the error back to it.
Paste into Claude Code
Install firecrawl (https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl) on this computer and get it working for me. I am not a developer; explain each step in one line as you go and never skip one. You are Claude Code, running on my machine.
1. Check what this machine already has (git, Python or Node as the project needs, Docker if the README says so). Tell me anything missing and install it, asking me before anything that needs my password.
2. Clone https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl into ~/tools/firecrawl and follow the README's install exactly.
3. Configure it. If it needs an API key or a login, stop and ask me for it; never guess one and never store it anywhere except where the README says.
Tool-specific notes: Install with `pip install firecrawl-py` (or `npm install firecrawl` for Node) and get an API key from firecrawl.dev — store it as `FIRECRAWL_API_KEY`, formatted like `fc-...`.
Smoke-test by scraping one page — the Python call `app.scrape('firecrawl.dev')` should return markdown back within a few seconds.
If you'd rather not use the hosted key, the whole stack is open source and self-hostable, but that means running and maintaining it yourself — treat that as a separate, bigger job.
If a call comes back empty, check the page didn't block the request under its own robots.txt file — Firecrawl honours it by default and will not force through.
4. Run the smallest test the README gives, and show me the output.
5. When it works, tell me what to type first, in one line, for this job: Scrape one page clean.
If anything fails, show me the exact error and fix it before going on.Paste into Kimi
Install firecrawl (https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl) on this computer and get it working for me. I am not a developer; explain each step in one line as you go and never skip one. You are Kimi, running on my machine.
1. Check what this machine already has (git, Python or Node as the project needs, Docker if the README says so). Tell me anything missing and install it, asking me before anything that needs my password.
2. Clone https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl into ~/tools/firecrawl and follow the README's install exactly.
3. Configure it. If it needs an API key or a login, stop and ask me for it; never guess one and never store it anywhere except where the README says.
Tool-specific notes: Install with `pip install firecrawl-py` (or `npm install firecrawl` for Node) and get an API key from firecrawl.dev — store it as `FIRECRAWL_API_KEY`, formatted like `fc-...`.
Smoke-test by scraping one page — the Python call `app.scrape('firecrawl.dev')` should return markdown back within a few seconds.
If you'd rather not use the hosted key, the whole stack is open source and self-hostable, but that means running and maintaining it yourself — treat that as a separate, bigger job.
If a call comes back empty, check the page didn't block the request under its own robots.txt file — Firecrawl honours it by default and will not force through.
4. Run the smallest test the README gives, and show me the output.
5. When it works, tell me what to type first, in one line, for this job: Scrape one page clean.
If anything fails, show me the exact error and fix it before going on.Paste into Gemini CLI
Install firecrawl (https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl) on this computer and get it working for me. I am not a developer; explain each step in one line as you go and never skip one. You are Gemini CLI, running on my machine.
1. Check what this machine already has (git, Python or Node as the project needs, Docker if the README says so). Tell me anything missing and install it, asking me before anything that needs my password.
2. Clone https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl into ~/tools/firecrawl and follow the README's install exactly.
3. Configure it. If it needs an API key or a login, stop and ask me for it; never guess one and never store it anywhere except where the README says.
Tool-specific notes: Install with `pip install firecrawl-py` (or `npm install firecrawl` for Node) and get an API key from firecrawl.dev — store it as `FIRECRAWL_API_KEY`, formatted like `fc-...`.
Smoke-test by scraping one page — the Python call `app.scrape('firecrawl.dev')` should return markdown back within a few seconds.
If you'd rather not use the hosted key, the whole stack is open source and self-hostable, but that means running and maintaining it yourself — treat that as a separate, bigger job.
If a call comes back empty, check the page didn't block the request under its own robots.txt file — Firecrawl honours it by default and will not force through.
4. Run the smallest test the README gives, and show me the output.
5. When it works, tell me what to type first, in one line, for this job: Scrape one page clean.
If anything fails, show me the exact error and fix it before going on.Paste into Codex
Install firecrawl (https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl) on this computer and get it working for me. I am not a developer; explain each step in one line as you go and never skip one. You are Codex, running on my machine.
1. Check what this machine already has (git, Python or Node as the project needs, Docker if the README says so). Tell me anything missing and install it, asking me before anything that needs my password.
2. Clone https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl into ~/tools/firecrawl and follow the README's install exactly.
3. Configure it. If it needs an API key or a login, stop and ask me for it; never guess one and never store it anywhere except where the README says.
Tool-specific notes: Install with `pip install firecrawl-py` (or `npm install firecrawl` for Node) and get an API key from firecrawl.dev — store it as `FIRECRAWL_API_KEY`, formatted like `fc-...`.
Smoke-test by scraping one page — the Python call `app.scrape('firecrawl.dev')` should return markdown back within a few seconds.
If you'd rather not use the hosted key, the whole stack is open source and self-hostable, but that means running and maintaining it yourself — treat that as a separate, bigger job.
If a call comes back empty, check the page didn't block the request under its own robots.txt file — Firecrawl honours it by default and will not force through.
4. Run the smallest test the README gives, and show me the output.
5. When it works, tell me what to type first, in one line, for this job: Scrape one page clean.
If anything fails, show me the exact error and fix it before going on.What to point it at first
1
Scrape one page clean
Call it on a single page you know well and check the markdown it returns matches the page's actual content, not its ads or navigation.
2
Pull structured fields
Ask it to return a specific set of fields, like a title and a price, from a product page and check every field it returns is actually on the page, not invented.
3
Run it across a small list
Point it at five or ten related pages at once and check it flagged the ones it couldn't reach rather than silently returning blank results.
What it must never do unattended
- Never publish what it found without opening the sources yourself.
- Never point it past a login or a CAPTCHA. Public pages only, and it respects robots.txt.
Who made it
firecrawl/firecrawl on GitHub, under the AGPL-3.0 licence. 178,074 stars, checked 9 September 2026. Last change 8 September 2026. We did not write it; we checked it, and wrote this page so you can use it.
Also in Research
002
Weekly Research Brief
Once a week, what changed with your competitors and in your niche. One page, every line sourced.
15 min · Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini · three competitor namesOpen
Tool · Research · crawl4ai
Turn any web page into notes your AI can use
Give it a web address, or a list of them, and it hands back clean, plain-text versions of those pages — headings and paragraphs stripped of surrounding code — so your AI can read them.
20 min · your AI on your computer · a Python 3.10+ environment, playwright's browser binaries (installed via crawl4ai-setup), docker (optional, for server mode)Open
Tool · Research · gpt-researcher
A research report in minutes, with sources
You give it a question and it goes and researches it properly — pulling from many web sources at once, reading past what any single article says, and writing up a full report with citations you can check yourself.
20 min · your AI on your computer · python 3.11+, an OpenAI API key, a Tavily API key (for its web search), docker (optional, for the bundled web app)Open
Tool · Research · last30days-skill
Know what people are saying about anyone this month
Ask it about a person, a company, or a topic and it goes looking across Reddit, X, YouTube, TikTok, Hacker News and a handful of other platforms for what people have actually said in the last 30 days — ranked by real engagement, not by what a search engine's editors chose to surface.
10 min · your AI on your computer · python 3.12+ on PATH, a Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or other supported AI assistant to run it in, optional API keys for X, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok (Reddit, Hacker News, Polymarket and GitHub work without any)Open