ghost-probe — stealth web fetcher

ghost-probe is a standby Apify Actor with one HTTP endpoint: POST /v1/fetch.

It fetches a single URL through a stealth fetcher and returns the raw response body. It does not parse the page, crawl links, or render Markdown — you get the payload as-is and decide how to use it.

Quickstart

curl -X POST https://<user>--ghost-probe.apify.actor/v1/fetch \
  -H "authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com/","country":"US"}'

Input

POST /v1/fetch request body:

{
    "url": "https://example.com/",
    "country": "US",
    "session": "crawl-1",
    "render": { "mode": "auto" }
}

Field	Type	Default	Notes
url	URL string	required	Target URL to fetch. Must include a path (e.g. https://host/).
country	ISO-2 string	none	Proxy exit country.
session	string	auto-derived	Sticky session key — the same value reuses the same exit IP and cookies across calls. Charset: letters, digits, . _ ~.
render.mode	auto, http, browser	auto	auto = fast path, fall back to a browser if needed. http = fast path only. browser = force the browser.

Output

Response body:

{
    "verdict": "success",
    "usable_content": true,
    "response": {
        "status": 200,
        "body": "<raw fetched payload>",
        "final_url": "https://www.example.com/"
    }
}

Field	Description
verdict	success, soft_block, hard_block, verifier_failed, transport_error, or budget_exhausted.
usable_content	Whether the returned body looks like usable content.
response.status	Status the target returned (0 for a transport-level failure).
response.body	Raw fetched payload — HTML stays HTML, JSON stays JSON text.
response.final_url	URL after redirects.

The stable contract is response.body + verdict: check verdict before trusting the body, since challenge and block pages are returned too. The response may carry extra diagnostic fields — treat body + verdict as the contract.

FAQ

Does it parse the page? No. It returns the fetched body; you parse it.

Does it solve captchas? No. It handles passive challenge pages best; interactive captcha solving is out of scope.

Can I use it on any site? Use it only where you have a lawful basis and where your usage respects the target site's terms, robots rules, and rate limits.

Usage Boundaries

Use ghost-probe only where you have a lawful basis and where your usage respects the target site's terms, robots rules, and rate limits.