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Before You Start

You’ll need:
  • A CrawlKit account (sign up at the dashboard)
  • An API key (create one in the dashboard)
Your API key looks like this: ck_abc123.... Keep it secret!

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Step 1: Get Your API Key

  1. Go to the CrawlKit dashboard
  2. Navigate to API Keys
  3. Click Create New Key
  4. Give it a name (e.g., “My First Key”)
  5. Copy the key - you’ll only see it once!

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Step 2: Make Your First Request

Let’s fetch a simple webpage. Open your terminal and run: 
curl -X POST https://api.crawlkit.com/v1/crawl/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: ApiKey ck_your_api_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com"}'
Replace ck_your_api_key_here with your actual API key.

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Step 3: Understand the Response

You’ll get a JSON response like this: 
{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "finalUrl": "https://example.com/",
    "markdown": "# Example Domain\n\nThis domain is for use in illustrative examples...",
    "html": "<h1>Example Domain</h1><p>This domain is for use in illustrative examples...</p>",
    "rawHtml": "<!doctype html><html>...</html>",
    "metadata": {
      "title": "Example Domain",
      "description": null,
      "language": "en"
    },
    "links": {
      "internal": [],
      "external": ["https://www.iana.org/domains/example"]
    },
    "stats": {
      "fetchTime": 245,
      "cleaningTime": 12,
      "extractionTime": 8,
      "conversionTime": 5,
      "totalTime": 342
    },
    "creditsUsed": 1,
    "creditsRemaining": 999
  }
}
What you get:
  • markdown - Cleaned, readable markdown content
  • html - Cleaned HTML (main content only)
  • rawHtml - Original unprocessed HTML
  • metadata - Page metadata (title, description, og tags, etc.)
  • links - Internal and external links found on the page
  • stats - Processing time statistics
  • creditsUsed - How many credits this cost (1 for scrape)
  • creditsRemaining - Your remaining credits

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Try the Other Endpoints

Web Search

Search DuckDuckGo and get structured results.
curl -X POST .../crawl/search \
  -d '{"query": "web scraping tools"}'

Screenshot

Capture a full-page screenshot.
curl -X POST .../crawl/screenshot \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com"}'

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Common Issues

Your API key is missing or invalid. Make sure:
  • You’re using the Authorization: ApiKey ck_... header
  • Your API key is correct and active
You’ve run out of credits. Purchase more from the dashboard.
The target website took too long to respond. Try increasing the timeout option.

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Next Steps

Authentication

Learn about API keys vs JWT tokens

Code Examples

See complete examples in cURL, Node.js, and Python