# Books Catalogue (`datapipe/books-catalogue`) Actor

Extracts the complete Books to Scrape catalogue — 1000 books with price, tax breakdown, stock level, rating, category, description and cover image.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/datapipe/books-catalogue.md
- **Developed by:** [Ayoub El Haddad](https://apify.com/datapipe) (community)
- **Categories:**
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.01 / 1,000 books

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#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

## Books Catalogue Scraper

Extracts the complete [Books to Scrape](https://books.toscrape.com) catalogue — 1000
books across 50 pages — with full per-book detail: price with tax breakdown, stock level,
rating, category, description, cover image, and the product-information table.

### What you get

One record per book:

| field | meaning |
| --- | --- |
| `url` | canonical product URL |
| `title` | book title |
| `category` | catalogue category, from the breadcrumb |
| `description` | product description (genuinely absent on some books) |
| `image` | absolute cover image URL |
| `price` | displayed price, as a number |
| `priceExclTax` / `priceInclTax` / `tax` | the product table's price breakdown |
| `currency` | always `GBP` for this catalogue |
| `inStock` / `stockCount` / `availability` | parsed stock level, plus the raw text |
| `rating` | 1–5, decoded from the star-rating class |
| `reviewCount` | number of reviews |
| `upc` / `productType` | product table identifiers |
| `scrapedAt` | RFC3339 UTC instant the run started |
| `error` | scoped array of factual errors for this record; `null` when clean |

A book that fails to load is still a record — it carries its `url` and an `error`
entry saying what happened, so the dataset is never quietly shorter than the catalogue.

### Input

| field | type | default | meaning |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `maxPages` | integer | `0` (all 50) | how many catalogue pages to walk, 20 books each |
| `maxBooks` | integer | `0` (all found) | cap on how many books are opened |

Both default to the whole catalogue. Set them to sample it:

```json
{ "maxPages": 3, "maxBooks": 25 }
```

### Pricing

| event | when it fires |
| --- | --- |
| `catalogue_page` | one catalogue page walked to discover books |
| `book` | one book record produced |

Plus a small per-run charge. A full catalogue run is 50 `catalogue_page` events and
1000 `book` events.

### Notes

`books.toscrape.com` is a sandbox published specifically for practising scraping, so this
scraper is deliberately polite: requests are paced at 5 per second and the full catalogue
completes in a few minutes.

Results stream as they are produced, so records appear while the run is still going rather
than only at the end.

# Actor input Schema

## `maxPages` (type: `integer`):

How many catalogue pages to walk (20 books each). 0 or omitted = all 50.

## `maxBooks` (type: `integer`):

Cap on how many books are opened. 0 or omitted = every book found.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "maxPages": 0,
  "maxBooks": 0
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `records` (type: `string`):

The scraped records, one row each.

## `summary` (type: `string`):

Run-level fields: source, the run instant, and any run-level errors.

# 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 = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("datapipe/books-catalogue").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 = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("datapipe/books-catalogue").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 '{}' |
apify call datapipe/books-catalogue --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,datapipe/books-catalogue"
        }
    }
}

```

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/LLZ9LskQyDtddPaei/builds/buvvWRxfedajPNzti/openapi.json