Agent skill

firecrawl-reference-architecture

Implement Firecrawl reference architecture with scrape/crawl/map/extract pipelines. Use when designing new Firecrawl integrations, reviewing project structure, or building content ingestion pipelines for AI/RAG applications. Trigger with phrases like "firecrawl architecture", "firecrawl project structure", "firecrawl pipeline", "firecrawl RAG", "firecrawl knowledge base".

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npx add-skill https://github.com/jeremylongshore/claude-code-plugins-plus-skills/tree/main/plugins/saas-packs/firecrawl-pack/skills/firecrawl-reference-architecture

SKILL.md

Firecrawl Reference Architecture

Overview

Production architecture for web scraping and content ingestion with Firecrawl. Covers three tiers: on-demand scraping, scheduled crawl pipelines, and real-time RAG ingestion. Uses all four Firecrawl endpoints: scrape, crawl, map, and extract.

Architecture Diagram

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                   Firecrawl Pipeline                     │
│                                                          │
│  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────┐  ┌───────────┐   │
│  │ scrapeUrl│  │ crawlUrl │  │mapUrl│  │ extract   │   │
│  │ (1 page) │  │ (N pages)│  │(URLs)│  │ (LLM+JSON)│   │
│  └────┬─────┘  └────┬─────┘  └──┬───┘  └─────┬─────┘   │
│       │              │            │            │          │
│       ▼              ▼            ▼            ▼          │
│  ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │            Content Processing Layer                │   │
│  │  Clean MD │ Validate │ Deduplicate │ Chunk        │   │
│  └─────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┘   │
│                         │                                 │
│  ┌─────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │              Storage & Output                      │   │
│  │  Files │ Database │ Vector Store │ Search Index    │   │
│  └───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Instructions

Step 1: Firecrawl Service Layer

typescript
// src/firecrawl/service.ts
import FirecrawlApp from "@mendable/firecrawl-js";

const firecrawl = new FirecrawlApp({
  apiKey: process.env.FIRECRAWL_API_KEY!,
});

// Single page scrape
export async function scrapePage(url: string) {
  return firecrawl.scrapeUrl(url, {
    formats: ["markdown"],
    onlyMainContent: true,
    waitFor: 2000,
  });
}

// Site-wide crawl with safety limits
export async function crawlSite(baseUrl: string, opts?: {
  maxPages?: number;
  paths?: string[];
  excludePaths?: string[];
}) {
  return firecrawl.crawlUrl(baseUrl, {
    limit: opts?.maxPages || 50,
    maxDepth: 3,
    includePaths: opts?.paths,
    excludePaths: opts?.excludePaths || ["/blog/*", "/news/*"],
    scrapeOptions: { formats: ["markdown"], onlyMainContent: true },
  });
}

// Fast URL discovery
export async function discoverUrls(baseUrl: string) {
  const map = await firecrawl.mapUrl(baseUrl);
  return map.links || [];
}

// Structured data extraction
export async function extractData(url: string, schema: object) {
  return firecrawl.scrapeUrl(url, {
    formats: ["extract"],
    extract: { schema },
  });
}

Step 2: Content Processing Pipeline

typescript
// src/pipeline/processor.ts
import { createHash } from "crypto";

interface ProcessedPage {
  url: string;
  title: string;
  markdown: string;
  contentHash: string;
  wordCount: number;
  chunks: string[];
}

export function processPage(page: any): ProcessedPage | null {
  const markdown = cleanMarkdown(page.markdown || "");
  if (markdown.length < 100) return null; // skip thin content

  return {
    url: page.metadata?.sourceURL || "",
    title: page.metadata?.title || "",
    markdown,
    contentHash: createHash("sha256").update(markdown).digest("hex"),
    wordCount: markdown.split(/\s+/).length,
    chunks: chunkMarkdown(markdown, 1000),
  };
}

function cleanMarkdown(md: string): string {
  return md
    .replace(/\n{3,}/g, "\n\n")
    .replace(/\[.*?\]\(javascript:.*?\)/g, "")
    .replace(/<!--[\s\S]*?-->/g, "")
    .trim();
}

function chunkMarkdown(md: string, maxWords: number): string[] {
  const sections = md.split(/\n##\s/);
  const chunks: string[] = [];
  let current = "";

  for (const section of sections) {
    if (current.split(/\s+/).length + section.split(/\s+/).length > maxWords) {
      if (current) chunks.push(current.trim());
      current = section;
    } else {
      current += "\n## " + section;
    }
  }
  if (current) chunks.push(current.trim());
  return chunks;
}

Step 3: Map + Selective Scrape Pipeline

typescript
// src/pipeline/intelligent-scrape.ts
export async function intelligentScrape(siteUrl: string, opts: {
  pathFilter: string;
  maxPages: number;
}) {
  // 1. Map site structure (1 credit)
  const allUrls = await discoverUrls(siteUrl);
  const relevant = allUrls.filter(url => url.includes(opts.pathFilter));

  console.log(`Map: ${allUrls.length} total, ${relevant.length} match "${opts.pathFilter}"`);

  // 2. Batch scrape relevant URLs (N credits)
  const targets = relevant.slice(0, opts.maxPages);
  const result = await firecrawl.batchScrapeUrls(targets, {
    formats: ["markdown"],
    onlyMainContent: true,
  });

  // 3. Process and deduplicate
  const seen = new Set<string>();
  const processed = (result.data || [])
    .map(processPage)
    .filter((p): p is ProcessedPage => {
      if (!p || seen.has(p.contentHash)) return false;
      seen.add(p.contentHash);
      return true;
    });

  return { total: allUrls.length, scraped: targets.length, processed: processed.length, pages: processed };
}

Step 4: Async Crawl with Storage

typescript
// src/pipeline/crawl-pipeline.ts
import { writeFileSync, mkdirSync } from "fs";

export async function crawlAndStore(baseUrl: string, outputDir: string) {
  mkdirSync(outputDir, { recursive: true });

  const crawl = await firecrawl.crawlUrl(baseUrl, {
    limit: 100,
    scrapeOptions: { formats: ["markdown"], onlyMainContent: true },
  });

  const manifest = (crawl.data || [])
    .map(processPage)
    .filter((p): p is ProcessedPage => p !== null)
    .map(page => {
      const slug = new URL(page.url).pathname
        .replace(/\//g, "_").replace(/^_|_$/g, "") || "index";
      writeFileSync(`${outputDir}/${slug}.md`, page.markdown);
      return { url: page.url, file: `${slug}.md`, words: page.wordCount, chunks: page.chunks.length };
    });

  writeFileSync(`${outputDir}/manifest.json`, JSON.stringify(manifest, null, 2));
  return manifest;
}

Error Handling

Issue Cause Solution
Timeout on scrape JS-heavy page Increase waitFor or use actions
Empty markdown Content behind paywall Try different URL or authenticated scrape
Crawl incomplete Hit page limit Increase limit or use includePaths
Duplicate content URL aliases or redirects Hash content for deduplication
Map returns few URLs Site has no sitemap Use crawlUrl for thorough discovery

Examples

Documentation Scraper

typescript
const docs = await intelligentScrape("https://docs.firecrawl.dev", {
  pathFilter: "/features/",
  maxPages: 20,
});
console.log(`Scraped ${docs.processed} unique pages from ${docs.total} discovered`);

RAG Knowledge Base Builder

typescript
const pages = await crawlAndStore("https://docs.example.com", "./knowledge-base");
// Feed chunks to vector store for RAG
for (const page of pages) {
  // Each page has pre-chunked content ready for embedding
}

Resources

Next Steps

For multi-environment setup, see firecrawl-multi-env-setup.

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