# Stack Exchange Questions Scraper - Q\&A, Tags & Answers (`thirdwatch/stack-exchange-questions-scraper`) Actor

Search Stack Overflow and 170+ Stack Exchange communities through the official API. Export questions, body text, tags, scores, views, answers, accepted status, owners, dates, and links. Built for research, benchmarking, and data pipelines.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/thirdwatch/stack-exchange-questions-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Thirdwatch](https://apify.com/thirdwatch) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Education
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## Stack Exchange Questions Scraper

Search Stack Overflow and other Stack Exchange communities through the official API. The Actor returns normalized question rows with clean and raw body text, tags, scores, views, answer counts, accepted-answer status, owner metadata, timestamps, and canonical links.

```json
{
  "sites": ["stackoverflow"],
  "searchQueries": ["async python"],
  "tags": ["python"],
  "sort": "activity",
  "maxResultsPerSearch": 100
}
```

Keyless API access has a limited daily quota. The Actor respects `backoff` responses and stops at the requested result cap. Question content remains subject to Stack Exchange's content license and attribution requirements.

# Actor input Schema

## `sites` (type: `array`):

API site parameters such as stackoverflow, superuser, serverfault, askubuntu, or math.

## `searchQueries` (type: `array`):

Optional free-text queries. Leave empty to collect recently active questions matching the tag filter.

## `tags` (type: `array`):

Require all listed tags, for example python and asyncio. Stack Exchange accepts up to five tags per request.

## `sort` (type: `string`):

Official Stack Exchange question sort mode.

## `order` (type: `string`):

Return highest/newest first with descending order, or reverse it.

## `acceptedOnly` (type: `boolean`):

Only return questions that have an accepted answer.

## `maxResultsPerSearch` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many unique questions for each site and query combination.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "sites": [
    "stackoverflow"
  ],
  "searchQueries": [
    "async python"
  ],
  "tags": [
    "python"
  ],
  "sort": "activity",
  "order": "desc",
  "acceptedOnly": false,
  "maxResultsPerSearch": 100
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (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 = {
    "sites": [
        "stackoverflow"
    ],
    "searchQueries": [
        "async python"
    ],
    "tags": [
        "python"
    ],
    "sort": "activity",
    "order": "desc",
    "acceptedOnly": false,
    "maxResultsPerSearch": 100
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("thirdwatch/stack-exchange-questions-scraper").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 = {
    "sites": ["stackoverflow"],
    "searchQueries": ["async python"],
    "tags": ["python"],
    "sort": "activity",
    "order": "desc",
    "acceptedOnly": False,
    "maxResultsPerSearch": 100,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("thirdwatch/stack-exchange-questions-scraper").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 '{
  "sites": [
    "stackoverflow"
  ],
  "searchQueries": [
    "async python"
  ],
  "tags": [
    "python"
  ],
  "sort": "activity",
  "order": "desc",
  "acceptedOnly": false,
  "maxResultsPerSearch": 100
}' |
apify call thirdwatch/stack-exchange-questions-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,thirdwatch/stack-exchange-questions-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

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/0sE9IUCfYFJsDEMSD/builds/hZjmoq6ss8jHL2duf/openapi.json