# Website to Markdown Crawler (`smallgearsco/website-to-markdown`) Actor

Crawl a website from start URLs within the same domain and get clean Markdown, title and word count per page. Respects robots.txt. Optional JS rendering. Flat, predictable per-page pricing.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/smallgearsco/website-to-markdown.md
- **Developed by:** [Small Gears Co](https://apify.com/smallgearsco) (community)
- **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

## Website to Markdown Crawler

Crawl a website from one or more start URLs and get clean Markdown for every page, ready for AI agents, RAG pipelines and LLM context. An alternative to the Website Content Crawler with flat, predictable per-page pricing instead of compute-based billing.

### What it does

- Follows links only within the same domain as each start URL (optionally only under the start path).
- Respects robots.txt, including crawl-delay.
- Stops at your max-pages limit, so the cost of a run is known in advance.
- Strips navigation, headers, footers, scripts and forms, then converts the main content to Markdown.
- Optional JavaScript rendering with Playwright (off by default to keep runs cheap and fast).

### Input

See `.actor/input_schema.json`. Example:

```json
{
  "startUrls": ["https://docs.apify.com/academy"],
  "maxPages": 5,
  "stayUnderStartPath": true
}
```

### Output

One dataset item per page:

```json
{ "url": "...", "title": "...", "markdown": "# Heading ...", "wordCount": 812, "crawledAt": "2026-10-15T17:00:00.000Z" }
```

### Pricing

Planned flat per-page pricing (for example $1 per 1,000 pages). Not yet enabled.

### Local test

```
npm install
mkdir -p storage/key_value_stores/default && cp test-input.json storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json
npm start
```

### About

Built and maintained by Small Gears Co (https://smallgearsco.com). Questions or feature requests: contact@smallgearsco.com

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

Pages to start crawling from. Links are followed only within the same domain as each start URL.

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

Maximum number of pages to save across all start URLs. The run stops when this is reached.

## `renderJs` (type: `boolean`):

Load pages in a headless Chromium browser so JavaScript-built content is captured. Slower and uses more compute. Off by default.

## `stayUnderStartPath` (type: `boolean`):

Only follow links whose path starts with the start URL path, for example to crawl just /docs/.

## `requestDelayMs` (type: `integer`):

Pause between page requests to be polite to the target site. A robots.txt crawl-delay, if larger, takes precedence.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://docs.apify.com/academy"
  ],
  "maxPages": 50,
  "renderJs": false,
  "stayUnderStartPath": false,
  "requestDelayMs": 250
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

One record per crawled page (url, title, markdown, wordCount), stored in the default dataset.

# 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 = {
    "startUrls": [
        "https://docs.apify.com/academy"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("smallgearsco/website-to-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 = { "startUrls": ["https://docs.apify.com/academy"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("smallgearsco/website-to-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 '{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://docs.apify.com/academy"
  ]
}' |
apify call smallgearsco/website-to-markdown --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,smallgearsco/website-to-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/J9JmgyUOBsRg4fIvb/builds/lYTpQBhqBxlwBT6a9/openapi.json