# Pluralsight Course Catalog Scraper (`crawlerbros/pluralsight-course-catalog-scraper`) Actor

Scrape Pluralsight's technology course catalog. Search by keyword or browse by category/catalog/skill-level, get ratings, duration, authors, and cover images. Enrich individual courses by URL for full descriptions.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/crawlerbros/pluralsight-course-catalog-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Crawler Bros](https://apify.com/crawlerbros) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Videos, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $3.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Pluralsight Course Catalog Scraper

Scrape Pluralsight's technology course catalog — search by keyword or browse the full library by category, subscription catalog, and skill level. Get titles, ratings, durations, authors, cover images, and publish dates for every matching course. Optionally enrich any course URL with its full description.

### What this actor does

- **Two modes:** `search` (keyword search or full catalog browse with filters) and `byUrls` (fetch full details for specific course URLs)
- **Filters:** category, subscription catalog, skill level, minimum rating, author, duration range, exclude retired courses
- **Sorting:** relevance, highest rated, lowest rated
- **Rich metadata:** ratings, rating counts, duration (raw + parsed minutes), authors, cover image, publish/update dates
- **No login, no cookies, no paid proxy** — public data only
- **Empty fields are omitted** — every record only contains fields that have real data

### Output per course

- `title` — course title
- `sourceUrl` — canonical `pluralsight.com/courses/...` URL
- `courseSlug` — URL slug / product ID
- `category` — top-level learning category (e.g. `Data`, `Cloud`, `Security`)
- `catalog` — subscription catalog (e.g. `Core Tech`, `Data`, `AI`)
- `level` — `Beginner` / `Intermediate` / `Advanced`
- `rating` — average rating (0–5)
- `ratingCount` — number of ratings
- `duration` — human-readable duration (e.g. `1h 28m`)
- `durationMinutes` — duration parsed to total minutes
- `authors[]` — course author names
- `authorIds[]` — author UUIDs (mode=`byUrls` only)
- `imageUrl` — course cover image
- `publishedAt` — ISO 8601 UTC publish timestamp
- `updatedAt` — last-updated date (`YYYY-MM-DD`)
- `isRetired` — whether Pluralsight has retired/archived the course
- `description` — full "What you'll learn" text (mode=`byUrls` only)
- `recordType: "course"`, `scrapedAt`

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `mode` | string | `search` | `search` / `byUrls` |
| `searchQuery` | string | `python` | Free-text query (mode=`search`). Leave empty to browse all courses matching the filters. |
| `courseCategory` | select | `any` | `Artificial Intelligence` / `Business` / `Cloud` / `Data` / `IT Ops` / `Professional Development` / `Security` / `Software Development` |
| `courseCatalog` | select | `any` | `AI` / `Cloud` / `Core Tech` / `Data` / `Security` |
| `level` | select | `any` | `Beginner` / `Intermediate` / `Advanced` |
| `minRating` | number | – | Drop courses rated below this (0–5) |
| `author` | string | – | Only keep courses whose author list contains this text |
| `minDurationMinutes` / `maxDurationMinutes` | int | – | Drop courses outside this duration range (minutes) |
| `sortBy` | select | `relevance` | `relevance` / `highestRated` / `lowestRated` |
| `excludeRetired` | boolean | `true` | Skip retired/archived courses |
| `courseUrls` | array | – | Course URLs to fetch (mode=`byUrls`) |
| `maxItems` | int | `30` | Hard cap on emitted records (1–1000) |

#### Example: search with filters

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "kubernetes",
  "courseCategory": "Cloud",
  "level": "Intermediate",
  "minRating": 4,
  "maxItems": 50
}
```

#### Example: browse all Data courses, highest rated first

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "",
  "courseCategory": "Data",
  "sortBy": "highestRated",
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

#### Example: courses by a specific author, 30-90 minutes long

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "",
  "author": "Robert Horvick",
  "minDurationMinutes": 30,
  "maxDurationMinutes": 90,
  "maxItems": 30
}
```

#### Example: enrich specific course URLs

```json
{
  "mode": "byUrls",
  "courseUrls": [
    "https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/python-data-essentials-python-introduction",
    "https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/authentication-for-python"
  ]
}
```

### Use cases

- **Edtech competitive analysis** — track Pluralsight's course catalog breadth by category
- **Curriculum design** — discover top-rated courses for a given skill level
- **Content gap analysis** — compare Pluralsight's catalog against your own course library
- **Learning path research** — find recently published or updated courses in a technology area
- **Talent development** — build custom skill-development reading lists from real course metadata

### FAQ

**Do I need a Pluralsight account?**  No. This actor only reads publicly indexed course-catalog metadata — no login, cookies, or paid proxy required.

**Can I browse without a search term?**  Yes — leave `searchQuery` empty and use `courseCategory` / `courseCatalog` / `level` to browse the catalog.

**Why do some courses lack a `description`?**  Full descriptions are only fetched in `byUrls` mode (one HTTP request per course). The `search` mode returns lightweight catalog records for speed; use `byUrls` on specific results to enrich them.

**What's the difference between `category` and `catalog`?**  `category` is Pluralsight's top-level learning topic (e.g. `Software Development`); `catalog` is the subscription plan tier the course is bundled under (e.g. `Core Tech`).

**How accurate is `durationMinutes`?**  Parsed directly from Pluralsight's own `Xh Ym` duration label — same number shown on the course page.

**How fresh is the data?**  Real-time — every run queries Pluralsight's live course-catalog search index.

# Actor input Schema

## `mode` (type: `string`):

What to fetch.

## `searchQuery` (type: `string`):

Free-text query matched against course titles/content. Leave empty to browse all courses matching the filters below.

## `courseCategory` (type: `string`):

Filter to a top-level Pluralsight learning category.

## `courseCatalog` (type: `string`):

Filter to the subscription catalog a course belongs to.

## `level` (type: `string`):

Filter to a specific course difficulty level.

## `minRating` (type: `number`):

Drop courses with an average rating below this value (0-5).

## `author` (type: `string`):

Only keep courses whose author list contains this text (case-insensitive), e.g. `Robert Horvick`.

## `minDurationMinutes` (type: `integer`):

Drop courses shorter than this, in minutes.

## `maxDurationMinutes` (type: `integer`):

Drop courses longer than this, in minutes.

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Result ordering. `Relevance` is upstream default ranking; rating sorts are applied server-side.

## `excludeRetired` (type: `boolean`):

Skip courses Pluralsight has marked as retired/archived.

## `courseUrls` (type: `array`):

Full Pluralsight course URLs to fetch, e.g. `https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/python-data-essentials-python-introduction`.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Hard cap on emitted records.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "python",
  "courseCategory": "any",
  "courseCatalog": "any",
  "level": "any",
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "excludeRetired": true,
  "courseUrls": [
    "https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/python-data-essentials-python-introduction"
  ],
  "maxItems": 30
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `courses` (type: `string`):

Dataset containing all scraped Pluralsight courses.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "mode": "search",
    "searchQuery": "python",
    "courseCategory": "any",
    "courseCatalog": "any",
    "level": "any",
    "sortBy": "relevance",
    "excludeRetired": true,
    "courseUrls": [
        "https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/python-data-essentials-python-introduction"
    ],
    "maxItems": 30
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("crawlerbros/pluralsight-course-catalog-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "mode": "search",
    "searchQuery": "python",
    "courseCategory": "any",
    "courseCatalog": "any",
    "level": "any",
    "sortBy": "relevance",
    "excludeRetired": True,
    "courseUrls": ["https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/python-data-essentials-python-introduction"],
    "maxItems": 30,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("crawlerbros/pluralsight-course-catalog-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "python",
  "courseCategory": "any",
  "courseCatalog": "any",
  "level": "any",
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "excludeRetired": true,
  "courseUrls": [
    "https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/python-data-essentials-python-introduction"
  ],
  "maxItems": 30
}' |
apify call crawlerbros/pluralsight-course-catalog-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,crawlerbros/pluralsight-course-catalog-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/CEI4YGYXzNWgmpfQC/builds/rtrDgGQOaWcosAYbw/openapi.json