# Sitemap to LLM Markdown & RAG Pipeline (`piotrhl/sitemap-to-llm-markdown`) Actor

Extract XML sitemaps, strip boilerplate, and convert web pages into clean, token-counted Markdown for LLM ingestion and vector databases under 128 MB RAM.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/piotrhl/sitemap-to-llm-markdown.md
- **Developed by:** [Piotr Hładik](https://apify.com/piotrhl) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Developer tools
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event

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?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Sitemap to LLM Markdown & RAG Pipeline

**Sitemap to LLM Markdown** is an ultra-fast, async Python Actor engineered for AI developers, RAG pipelines, and vector knowledge base ingestion. It crawls XML sitemaps, fetches web pages concurrently, strips ads and navigation boilerplate with a high-performance C-based HTML parser, and outputs clean, token-counted Markdown documents.

***

### ⚡ Key Features

- **Sitemap Index & Gzip Support**: Seamlessly processes standard `sitemap.xml`, multi-tier `sitemap_index.xml`, and gzip-compressed `.xml.gz` feeds.
- **Aggressive Boilerplate Cleaning**: Automatically detects and strips headers, footers, navigation trees, cookie banners, script tags, SVG icons, and advertisements.
- **LLM-Ready Formatting**: Converts HTML semantic tags (`h1`-`h6`, `p`, `pre/code`, `ul/ol`, `table`, `blockquote`) into clean GitHub Flavored Markdown.
- **Accurate Token Estimation**: Estimates LLM token counts and character length for every page, allowing vector embedding chunking on ingestion.
- **Pay-Per-Event (PPE) Monetization**: Pay only for successful page conversions ($0.001 / page) with zero idle compute waste.
- **Ultra-Low Memory Footprint**: Runs strictly under 128 MB RAM using async HTTP/2 connections and C-level parsing (`selectolax.lexbor`).

***

### 📥 Input Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `sitemap_urls` | Array | `["https://apify.com/sitemap.xml"]` | Target sitemap URLs to crawl. |
| `max_pages` | Integer | `10` | Maximum number of pages to convert. |
| `include_url_regex` | String | `None` | Optional regex pattern to filter included URLs. |
| `exclude_url_regex` | String | `None` | Optional regex pattern to exclude certain URLs. |
| `concurrency` | Integer | `5` | Concurrent HTTP/2 download connections. |
| `proxy_configuration` | Object | `None` | Optional proxy settings. |

***

### 📤 Output Format

Each record in the default dataset conforms to the following schema:

````json
{
  "url": "https://example.com/docs/getting-started",
  "title": "Getting Started with Python API",
  "description": "Learn how to integrate the API in 5 minutes.",
  "markdown": "# Getting Started with Python API\n\nLearn how to integrate the API in 5 minutes.\n\n## Installation\n\n```bash\npip install mypackage\n```",
  "character_count": 1420,
  "estimated_tokens": 355,
  "extracted_at": "2026-10-18T16:10:00Z"
}
````

***

### 💰 Pricing & Monetization

- **Startup Event (`apify-actor-start`)**: $0.00005
- **Per Page Event (`page-converted`)**: $0.0010

# Actor input Schema

## `sitemap_urls` (type: `array`):

List of XML Sitemap URLs (supports sitemap.xml, sitemap_index.xml, and .xml.gz).

## `max_pages` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of pages to process from sitemaps.

## `include_url_regex` (type: `string`):

Optional regular expression: only URLs matching this regex will be converted.

## `exclude_url_regex` (type: `string`):

Optional regular expression: URLs matching this regex will be skipped.

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

Number of concurrent page conversion requests.

## `proxy_configuration` (type: `object`):

Apify Proxy settings (optional, defaults to direct connection).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "sitemap_urls": [
    "https://apify.com/sitemap.xml"
  ],
  "max_pages": 10,
  "concurrency": 5
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `overview` (type: `string`):

No description

# 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 = {
    "sitemap_urls": [
        "https://apify.com/sitemap.xml"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("piotrhl/sitemap-to-llm-markdown").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 = { "sitemap_urls": ["https://apify.com/sitemap.xml"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("piotrhl/sitemap-to-llm-markdown").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 '{
  "sitemap_urls": [
    "https://apify.com/sitemap.xml"
  ]
}' |
apify call piotrhl/sitemap-to-llm-markdown --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,piotrhl/sitemap-to-llm-markdown"
        }
    }
}
```

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/bi8FqWHenNkeeiHWa/builds/xv8IHn5UbYlcTR2FJ/openapi.json