# RAG-Ready Website Crawler — Clean Content for LLMs & Vector DBs (`yourwingman/rag-ready-crawler`) Actor

Crawl websites and output clean, chunked content optimized for RAG pipelines, LLM training data, and vector databases. Built for AI knowledge bases and semantic search.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/yourwingman/rag-ready-crawler.md
- **Developed by:** [Wingman](https://apify.com/yourwingman) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event + usage

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are a software tools running on the Apify platform, for all kinds of web data extraction and automation use cases.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

In JavaScript/TypeScript projects, use official [JavaScript/TypeScript client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js.md):

```bash
npm install apify-client
```

In Python projects, use official [Python client library](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python.md):

```bash
pip install apify-client
```

In shell scripts, use [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md):

````bash
# MacOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash
# Windows
irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex
```bash

In AI frameworks, you might use the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp.md).

If your project is in a different language, use the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).


# README

## Actor: RAG-Ready Website Crawler

Crawl any website and output clean, chunked content optimized for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines, LLM training data, and vector databases.

### Features

- **Clean content extraction**: Removes navigation, ads, sidebars, footers
- **Semantic chunking**: Smart split by headings and paragraphs
- **Markdown output**: Clean markdown format ideal for LLM consumption
- **Metadata extraction**: Title, description, headings, word count, publish date
- **Token counting**: Track approximate token counts per chunk
- **Same-domain crawling**: Respect site boundaries by default
- **Flexible crawling**: Configurable page limits and depth

### Use Cases

- Build RAG knowledge bases from documentation sites
- Collect training data for LLM fine-tuning
- Create vector database entries from web content
- Archive important web content in clean format
- Build AI-ready datasets from blogs and documentation

### Input

```json
{
  "startUrls": ["https://docs.example.com"],
  "maxPages": 50,
  "chunkSize": 2000,
  "chunkOverlap": 200,
  "includeMetadata": true,
  "outputFormat": "markdown",
  "excludeSelectors": ["nav", "footer", ".sidebar", ".advertisement"]
}
````

### Output

```json
{
  "url": "https://docs.example.com/getting-started",
  "title": "Getting Started",
  "chunkIndex": 0,
  "content": "# Getting Started\n\nWelcome to the documentation...",
  "tokenCount": 450,
  "charCount": 1850,
  "headings": ["Getting Started", "Installation", "Quick Start"],
  "metadata": {
    "description": "Learn how to get started with Example",
    "author": "Example Team",
    "publishDate": "2026-01-15"
  }
}
```

### Changelog

#### v1.0.0 (2026-07-09)

- Initial release
- Clean HTML-to-markdown content extraction
- Semantic chunking with configurable size/overlap
- Full metadata extraction
- Token counting for LLM context estimation
- Apify Dataset output with chunked entries

# Actor input Schema

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

URLs to start crawling from. Can be a single page or an entire site.

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

Maximum number of pages to crawl.

## `sameDomain` (type: `boolean`):

Only crawl pages on the same domain as start URLs.

## `chunkSize` (type: `integer`):

Target size for each content chunk. Used for RAG splitting.

## `chunkOverlap` (type: `integer`):

Overlap between consecutive chunks to maintain context.

## `includeMetadata` (type: `boolean`):

Include page metadata: description, keywords, author, publish date, etc.

## `excludeSelectors` (type: `array`):

CSS selectors to exclude from content (e.g., 'nav, footer, .sidebar').

## `outputFormat` (type: `string`):

Format for the extracted content.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://docs.example.com"
  ],
  "maxPages": 50,
  "sameDomain": true,
  "chunkSize": 2000,
  "chunkOverlap": 200,
  "includeMetadata": true,
  "excludeSelectors": [
    "nav",
    "footer",
    ".sidebar",
    ".advertisement"
  ],
  "outputFormat": "markdown"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `url` (type: `string`):

URL of the crawled page

## `title` (type: `string`):

HTML title of the page

## `chunkIndex` (type: `string`):

Position of this chunk within the page content (0-based)

## `content` (type: `string`):

Cleaned formatted content (markdown, text, or HTML)

## `tokenCount` (type: `string`):

Estimated number of tokens (~4 chars/token)

## `charCount` (type: `string`):

Length of the content in characters

## `headings` (type: `string`):

Comma-separated list of h1/h2/h3 headings from the page

## `metadata_description` (type: `string`):

HTML meta description

## `metadata_keywords` (type: `string`):

HTML meta keywords

## `metadata_author` (type: `string`):

HTML meta author

## `metadata_publishDate` (type: `string`):

Article publication date

## `metadata_ogImage` (type: `string`):

Open Graph image URL

## `metadata_ogType` (type: `string`):

Open Graph content type

## `format` (type: `string`):

Content format (markdown, text, or html)

## `crawlTimestamp` (type: `string`):

ISO timestamp when the page was crawled

# 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.example.com"
    ],
    "excludeSelectors": [
        "nav",
        "footer",
        ".sidebar",
        ".advertisement"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("yourwingman/rag-ready-crawler").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.example.com"],
    "excludeSelectors": [
        "nav",
        "footer",
        ".sidebar",
        ".advertisement",
    ],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("yourwingman/rag-ready-crawler").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).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.example.com"
  ],
  "excludeSelectors": [
    "nav",
    "footer",
    ".sidebar",
    ".advertisement"
  ]
}' |
apify call yourwingman/rag-ready-crawler --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=yourwingman/rag-ready-crawler",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

```json
{
    "openapi": "3.0.1",
    "info": {
        "title": "RAG-Ready Website Crawler — Clean Content for LLMs & Vector DBs",
        "description": "Crawl websites and output clean, chunked content optimized for RAG pipelines, LLM training data, and vector databases. Built for AI knowledge bases and semantic search.",
        "version": "1.0",
        "x-build-id": "Xh8bTr2VYbCuCcMd5"
    },
    "servers": [
        {
            "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2"
        }
    ],
    "paths": {
        "/acts/yourwingman~rag-ready-crawler/run-sync-get-dataset-items": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-yourwingman-rag-ready-crawler",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for its completion, and returns Actor's dataset items in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/yourwingman~rag-ready-crawler/runs": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "runs-sync-yourwingman-rag-ready-crawler",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK",
                        "content": {
                            "application/json": {
                                "schema": {
                                    "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/yourwingman~rag-ready-crawler/run-sync": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-yourwingman-rag-ready-crawler",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    },
    "components": {
        "schemas": {
            "inputSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "required": [
                    "startUrls"
                ],
                "properties": {
                    "startUrls": {
                        "title": "Start URLs",
                        "type": "array",
                        "description": "URLs to start crawling from. Can be a single page or an entire site.",
                        "items": {
                            "type": "string",
                            "maxLength": 500
                        }
                    },
                    "maxPages": {
                        "title": "Max Pages",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "maximum": 10000,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Maximum number of pages to crawl.",
                        "default": 50
                    },
                    "sameDomain": {
                        "title": "Stay on Same Domain",
                        "type": "boolean",
                        "description": "Only crawl pages on the same domain as start URLs.",
                        "default": true
                    },
                    "chunkSize": {
                        "title": "Chunk Size (characters)",
                        "minimum": 500,
                        "maximum": 10000,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Target size for each content chunk. Used for RAG splitting.",
                        "default": 2000
                    },
                    "chunkOverlap": {
                        "title": "Chunk Overlap (characters)",
                        "minimum": 0,
                        "maximum": 1000,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Overlap between consecutive chunks to maintain context.",
                        "default": 200
                    },
                    "includeMetadata": {
                        "title": "Include Full Metadata",
                        "type": "boolean",
                        "description": "Include page metadata: description, keywords, author, publish date, etc.",
                        "default": true
                    },
                    "excludeSelectors": {
                        "title": "Exclude CSS Selectors",
                        "type": "array",
                        "description": "CSS selectors to exclude from content (e.g., 'nav, footer, .sidebar').",
                        "items": {
                            "type": "string",
                            "maxLength": 200
                        }
                    },
                    "outputFormat": {
                        "title": "Output Format",
                        "enum": [
                            "markdown",
                            "text",
                            "html"
                        ],
                        "type": "string",
                        "description": "Format for the extracted content.",
                        "default": "markdown"
                    }
                }
            },
            "runsResponseSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "properties": {
                    "data": {
                        "type": "object",
                        "properties": {
                            "id": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "actId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "userId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "startedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "finishedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "status": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "READY"
                            },
                            "meta": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "origin": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "API"
                                    },
                                    "userAgent": {
                                        "type": "string"
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "stats": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "inputBodyLen": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2000
                                    },
                                    "rebootCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "restartCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "resurrectCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "computeUnits": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "options": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "build": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "latest"
                                    },
                                    "timeoutSecs": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 300
                                    },
                                    "memoryMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1024
                                    },
                                    "diskMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2048
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "buildId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultKeyValueStoreId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultDatasetId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultRequestQueueId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "buildNumber": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "1.0.0"
                            },
                            "containerUrl": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "usage": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "usageTotalUsd": {
                                "type": "number",
                                "example": 0.00005
                            },
                            "usageUsd": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "number",
                                        "example": 0.00005
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
```