Internet Archive File Manifest Evidence API

Inventory declared file metadata for known public Internet Archive item IDs. Emit one row per selected file: filename, source role, format, declared byte size, modification text, MD5/SHA1/CRC32 and private flag. Useful for archive manifest QA and reproducible inventory snapshots without downloading a file.

At most3 identifiers and first1..100 files per item in source order. One official /metadata/ID?extended_err=1 call each with a2MiB decoded response cap; oversized metadata is a source error. Verify returned metadata.identifier exactly. files_count and selected count are exposed; count disagreement or truncation makes complete=false. The entire JSON metadata may be read in memory, but only selected file fields are emitted; uploader, creator, description, title, license and media content are omitted. []/error/errcode responses are errors rather than invented successful empty items. An explicitly present empty files list is a valid empty manifest. Private flags are preserved; no private file is contacted. Filename is data, not a local path, and may contain slashes: never execute it or use it as a filesystem target. This Actor produces no download links and never reads PDFs, ebooks, media or extracted text. Declared digests are not verified against bytes. Missing files are not deletion evidence, and manifest visibility is not a license or availability determination.

Quick start

{"itemIds": ["xfetch"], "maxFilesPerItem": 2}

Pricing and budget

0.0005 USD per emitted file metadata observation (0.5 USD per1000), plus0.005 USD startup at default256MB. Higher memory can multiply startup events; check effective Store pricing. Failed/empty sources do not emit result charges; startup can still apply. At zero result budget, input validation occurs but no upstream request is sent, and rowsAvailable is null (unknown). A positive budget can request the bounded source set before output; emission stops at the result cap and complete=false/PARTIAL_BUDGET reports truncation.

Snapshot, integration and limits

Use dataset rows together with OUTPUT and SNAPSHOT. Pass SNAPSHOT.previousHashes as previousHashes in a later run. NO_BASELINE/FIRST_SEEN/UNCHANGED/CHANGED compare only selected metadata including itemKey and sourceUrl; missing records are not deletions. FIRST_SEEN means absent from the supplied baseline. There is no persistent hidden state or automatic polling. Export JSON/CSV/Excel through the default dataset.

API example: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/soilair~internet-archive-file-manifest-evidence-api/runs with your Apify Authorization header and the JSON input above. Poll the returned run; read dataset items and OUTPUT/SNAPSHOT records using its store IDs. Do not place tokens or confidential data in input. No upstream key is needed. Results live in Apify run storage according to retention; no separate analytics service.

Only fixed HTTPS provider endpoints are constructed from validated identifiers. Public-IP DNS validation, pinned connections, TLS hostname verification,2MiB decoded responses, approximately95 seconds of network budget, at most5 same-provider redirects. Official API calls are distinct from website crawling; no arbitrary URLs or HTML pages. No linked documents/files are fetched. Queries are sequential with1-second spacing. Provider403/429 or Retry-After stops later calls; retry instructions are reported and no retry/proxy/circumvention is attempted. Shared IP limits and changes to upstream services can still block runs. Caller must respect provider headers and cache/reduce repeated requests. Text is data and should not be executed.

Developed with AI assistance. Tests and live/cloud comparisons qualify the selected-field contract; they do not prove commercial demand, provider uptime or a legal/license determination. Support: share a run ID and expected fields, without credentials or private material.

References: https://archive.org/developers/md-read.html