Quickstart

This walkthrough takes you from zero to a working scrape, with both engines.

1. Get an API key

1. Sign up and confirm your email.
2. Open API keys and click Generate key.
3. Copy the plaintext sf_… value shown on creation. It is only displayed once — it is hashed at rest and cannot be recovered. If you lose it, revoke and generate a new one.

You can also call the API from the dashboard’s built-in Run scrape page (no key required — the browser session is bound to your account), but for anything outside the browser you need a bearer token.

2. First scrape — deterministic

The action DSL maps each output key to a selector. The form is <scheme>=<selector>@<attribute>.

curl -sS -X POST https://api.scrapesilo.com/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sf_…" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
        "url": "https://example.com",
        "engine": "html",
        "actions": {
          "title": "css=h1@text",
          "body":  "css=p@text"
        }
      }'

Expected response:

{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "data": { "title": "Example Domain", "body": "This domain is for use…" },
  "tookMs": 312
}

Open the /executions page in the dashboard to inspect the full request/result/error JSON for the run.

3. First scrape — AI

If hand-writing selectors isn’t ergonomic, describe what you want in English:

curl -sS -X POST https://api.scrapesilo.com/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sf_…" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
        "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com",
        "engine": "ai",
        "query": "top 10 stories: title, link, points, author"
      }'

The response includes a generatedActions field containing the plan the model emitted. Save it and POST it back as actions on subsequent runs to skip the AI cost.

Every scrape spends credits from your plan’s monthly pool (the free tier starts with 1,000). Cost depends on the engine — html is 1 credit, AI and browser runs cost more.

4. Where to next

• Engines — pick HTML, Browser, or AI for your use case.
• Actions DSL — full selector + attribute reference.
• Pricing & quotas — credit costs, plans, and limits.
• MCP — drive scrapes from Claude Code or another MCP client.