# RAG Pipeline Scraper — Website to Markdown & JSONL (`yuchiaoniu/rag-pipeline-scraper`) Actor

Transform any website into clean Markdown and JSONL ready for RAG pipelines, vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, Chroma), and LLM training. Removes ads, navigation, and boilerplate automatically.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/yuchiaoniu/rag-pipeline-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Niu Yuchiao](https://apify.com/yuchiaoniu) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Automation, AI
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## 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

## RAG Pipeline Scraper — Website to Markdown & JSONL

Transform any website into clean **Markdown** and **JSONL** chunks, ready to drop into a RAG pipeline, vector database, or LLM fine-tuning workflow. The scraper automatically strips navigation menus, ads, footers, and boilerplate, leaving you only the content that matters.

---

### Why use this Actor?

Building a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system requires clean, chunked text from your source documents. This Actor does the heavy lifting:

- **Crawls** the entire site (or a single page) starting from a seed URL
- **Cleans** the HTML — removes scripts, ads, navbars, cookie banners, sidebars
- **Converts** to Markdown using a battle-tested HTML→MD library (Turndown + GFM)
- **Chunks** the text with a configurable word count and 10% overlap for better retrieval
- **Outputs** both individual Markdown files (Key-Value store) and a combined `output.jsonl` (Dataset + Key-Value store)

Works with any public website: documentation sites, blogs, news portals, product pages, wikis.

---

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|-------|------|---------|-------------|
| `startUrl` | string | *(required)* | The URL to start crawling from |
| `maxPages` | number | `50` | Maximum number of pages to scrape |
| `chunkSize` | number | `300` | Target word count per JSONL chunk |
| `outputMarkdown` | boolean | `true` | Save per-page Markdown to Key-Value store |
| `outputJsonl` | boolean | `true` | Save chunks to Dataset and `output.jsonl` |
| `includeMetadata` | boolean | `true` | Add `url`, `title`, `chunkIndex`, `scrapedAt` to each chunk |
| `sameDomainOnly` | boolean | `true` | Only follow links on the same domain as `startUrl` |

#### Example input

```json
{
  "startUrl": "https://docs.example.com",
  "maxPages": 100,
  "chunkSize": 400,
  "outputMarkdown": true,
  "outputJsonl": true,
  "includeMetadata": true,
  "sameDomainOnly": true
}
````

***

### Output

#### Dataset (JSONL chunks)

Each row in the Dataset is one text chunk, ready for embedding:

```json
{
  "text": "Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) combines a retrieval system with a language model...",
  "metadata": {
    "url": "https://docs.example.com/intro",
    "title": "Introduction to RAG",
    "chunkIndex": 0,
    "scrapedAt": "2025-01-01T00:00:00.000Z"
  }
}
```

The Dataset also contains one `page_summary` row per page:

```json
{
  "_type": "page_summary",
  "url": "https://docs.example.com/intro",
  "title": "Introduction to RAG",
  "wordCount": 1240,
  "chunkCount": 5
}
```

#### Key-Value store

| Key | Content |
|-----|---------|
| `page-1-docs-example-com-intro` | Full Markdown for that page |
| `output.jsonl` | All chunks concatenated as JSONL (one JSON object per line) |
| `STATS` | `{ pagesScraped, totalChunks, startUrl }` |

***

### Integrations

#### Pinecone

```python
import json, openai, pinecone

with open("output.jsonl") as f:
    chunks = [json.loads(line) for line in f]

pc = pinecone.Pinecone(api_key="YOUR_KEY")
index = pc.Index("my-index")

for i, chunk in enumerate(chunks):
    embedding = openai.embeddings.create(
        input=chunk["text"], model="text-embedding-3-small"
    ).data[0].embedding
    index.upsert([(str(i), embedding, chunk["metadata"])])
```

#### Weaviate

```python
import weaviate, json

client = weaviate.connect_to_local()
collection = client.collections.get("Document")

with open("output.jsonl") as f:
    for line in f:
        chunk = json.loads(line)
        collection.data.insert({"text": chunk["text"], **chunk["metadata"]})
```

#### LangChain

```python
from langchain_community.document_loaders import JSONLoader

loader = JSONLoader(
    file_path="output.jsonl",
    jq_schema=".",
    content_key="text",
    metadata_func=lambda r, _: r.get("metadata", {}),
    json_lines=True,
)
docs = loader.load()
```

***

### How it works

1. **Crawl** — Uses `CheerioCrawler` (fast, no-JavaScript HTML scraper) to fetch pages concurrently
2. **Clean** — Strips `<script>`, `<style>`, `<nav>`, `<header>`, `<footer>`, `<aside>`, cookie banners, ad containers, sidebars
3. **Extract** — Prefers `<article>`, `<main>`, `[role="main"]` elements; falls back to `<body>`
4. **Convert** — Runs the cleaned HTML through Turndown (with GitHub Flavored Markdown plugin) to produce clean Markdown
5. **Chunk** — Splits by word count with 10% overlap so context is preserved across chunk boundaries
6. **Store** — Saves Markdown files and JSONL chunks to Apify storage for easy download via API

***

### FAQ

**Does it handle JavaScript-rendered pages?**
No — this Actor uses a fast HTML-only scraper. For JavaScript-heavy SPAs, pair it with Apify's `apify/web-scraper` to render pages first.

**What languages does it support?**
Any language. The scraper is language-agnostic — it converts whatever HTML it receives.

**Can I scrape a single page without following links?**
Yes — set `maxPages: 1` or `sameDomainOnly: false` with a specific URL.

**How large can the site be?**
The default cap is 50 pages. Raise `maxPages` up to any number — the Actor handles large sites gracefully with concurrent crawling.

***

### Pricing

This Actor is billed per output chunk. A typical documentation site with 50 pages generates roughly 200–500 chunks.

***

### Feedback & Issues

Found a bug or want a feature? Open an issue via the **Issues** tab in Apify Store, or contact the author directly through the Apify platform.

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrl` (type: `string`):

The URL to start scraping from. Crawls all pages under this domain unless maxPages is set.

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

Maximum number of pages to scrape. Set to 0 for unlimited.

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

Split content into chunks of this many words for JSONL output. Ideal for vector embeddings.

## `outputMarkdown` (type: `boolean`):

Save each page as a separate Markdown file in Key-Value store.

## `outputJsonl` (type: `boolean`):

Output chunked JSONL records suitable for vector database import.

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

Include URL, title, and timestamp in each JSONL chunk.

## `sameDomainOnly` (type: `boolean`):

Only crawl pages on the same domain as the start URL.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrl": "https://docs.example.com",
  "maxPages": 50,
  "chunkSize": 300,
  "outputMarkdown": true,
  "outputJsonl": true,
  "includeMetadata": true,
  "sameDomainOnly": true
}
```

# 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 = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("yuchiaoniu/rag-pipeline-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 = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("yuchiaoniu/rag-pipeline-scraper").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 '{}' |
apify call yuchiaoniu/rag-pipeline-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

## OpenAPI specification

```json
{
    "openapi": "3.0.1",
    "info": {
        "title": "RAG Pipeline Scraper — Website to Markdown & JSONL",
        "description": "Transform any website into clean Markdown and JSONL ready for RAG pipelines, vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, Chroma), and LLM training. Removes ads, navigation, and boilerplate automatically.",
        "version": "1.0",
        "x-build-id": "UPFo4VVvEnwcbmSSm"
    },
    "servers": [
        {
            "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2"
        }
    ],
    "paths": {
        "/acts/yuchiaoniu~rag-pipeline-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-yuchiaoniu-rag-pipeline-scraper",
                "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": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/yuchiaoniu~rag-pipeline-scraper/runs": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "runs-sync-yuchiaoniu-rag-pipeline-scraper",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$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": {
                                    "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/yuchiaoniu~rag-pipeline-scraper/run-sync": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-yuchiaoniu-rag-pipeline-scraper",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$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": [
                    "startUrl"
                ],
                "properties": {
                    "startUrl": {
                        "title": "Start URL",
                        "type": "string",
                        "description": "The URL to start scraping from. Crawls all pages under this domain unless maxPages is set."
                    },
                    "maxPages": {
                        "title": "Max Pages",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "maximum": 10000,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Maximum number of pages to scrape. Set to 0 for unlimited.",
                        "default": 50
                    },
                    "chunkSize": {
                        "title": "Chunk Size (words)",
                        "minimum": 50,
                        "maximum": 2000,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Split content into chunks of this many words for JSONL output. Ideal for vector embeddings.",
                        "default": 300
                    },
                    "outputMarkdown": {
                        "title": "Output Markdown files",
                        "type": "boolean",
                        "description": "Save each page as a separate Markdown file in Key-Value store.",
                        "default": true
                    },
                    "outputJsonl": {
                        "title": "Output JSONL chunks",
                        "type": "boolean",
                        "description": "Output chunked JSONL records suitable for vector database import.",
                        "default": true
                    },
                    "includeMetadata": {
                        "title": "Include metadata in JSONL",
                        "type": "boolean",
                        "description": "Include URL, title, and timestamp in each JSONL chunk.",
                        "default": true
                    },
                    "sameDomainOnly": {
                        "title": "Same domain only",
                        "type": "boolean",
                        "description": "Only crawl pages on the same domain as the start URL.",
                        "default": true
                    }
                }
            },
            "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
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
```