http2md 0.9.1

A CLI tool to convert browser rendered HTTP content to Markdown with playwright

http2md

A CLI tool to fetch web pages and convert them to Markdown using Playwright.

Installation

pip install http2md
http2md install

Docker

You can use http2md via Docker without installing Python or system dependencies.

1. Build the image (first time only):

   docker-compose build
   

2. Run the crawler:

   # Crawl and save to ./out_docker/
   docker-compose run --rm http2md https://example.com --outdir out
   

   • The ./out_docker directory on your host is mounted to /app/out inside the container.
   • Command arguments (--depth, --tqdm, etc.) are passed directly to http2md.

Usage

# Basic usage (converts to Markdown)
http2md https://example.com

# Basic usage out to file (converts to Markdown)
http2md https://example.com -o output.md

# Output raw HTML
http2md https://example.com --html

# Wait for a specific element before extracting
http2md https://spa-site.com --wait-for ".content"

# Increase timeout for slow sites (default: 30000ms)
http2md https://slow-site.com --timeout 60000

# Use specific wait strategy
http2md https://fast-site.com --wait-until load

# SYNC Crawl site to depth 2, save to ./docs/
http2md https://react.dev  --depth 2 --outdir ./docs

# ASYNC Increase concurrency to 10
http2md async https://react.dev --jobs 10 --outdir ./docs

CLI Options

usage: http2md [-h] [--html]
               [--wait-until {auto,load,domcontentloaded,networkidle,commit}]
               [--timeout TIMEOUT] [--wait-for WAIT_FOR] [-o OUT]
               [url]

Convert HTTP content to Markdown. Supports:
- Headings, lists, code blocks, tables
- Links (static and dynamic)
- Images (with alt text)
- Formatting (bold, italic, **strikethrough**)

positional arguments:
  url                   URL to process

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --html                Output raw HTML instead of Markdown
  --wait-until          Wait strategy (default: auto)
  --timeout TIMEOUT     Timeout in milliseconds (default: 30000)
  --wait-for WAIT_FOR   CSS selector to wait for before extracting content
  -o, --out OUT         Output file path

Wait Strategies

Strategy	Description
auto	Combined: tries networkidle, falls back on timeout (default)
load	Wait for load event
domcontentloaded	Wait for DOM to be ready
networkidle	Wait for no network activity (500ms)
commit	Return immediately after response headers

Browser Presets

For sites with anti-bot protection (Cloudflare, etc.), use --preset:

# Sites with basic bot detection
http2md https://protected-site.com --preset stealth

# Cloudflare-protected sites (adds extra wait for JS challenge)
http2md https://cloudflare-site.com --preset cloudflare

# Crawling with preset
http2md https://protected-site.com --depth 2 --preset cloudflare --outdir ./out

# Async crawling with preset
http2md async https://protected-site.com --depth 2 --preset cloudflare -j 5

Preset	User-Agent	Viewport	Extra Wait	Use Case
stealth	Chrome/Windows	1920×1080	0s	Basic bot detection
cloudflare	Chrome/Windows	1920×1080	5s	Cloudflare JS challenge

Python API

You can also use http2md directly from Python:

from http2md.crawler import fetch_html
from markdownify import markdownify as md

# Fetch raw HTML
html = fetch_html("https://example.com")

# Convert to Markdown
markdown = md(html)
print(markdown)

# With options
html = fetch_html(
    "https://spa-site.com",
    wait_until="networkidle",  # or "auto", "load", "domcontentloaded"
    timeout=60000,             # 60 seconds
    wait_for=".content"        # CSS selector to wait for
)

Site Crawling

Crawl entire websites to a specified depth:

# Crawl site to depth 2, save to ./docs/
http2md https://react.dev  --depth 2 --outdir ./docs

# Only crawl /api/* pages
http2md https://react.dev  --depth 3 --include "/api/*"

# Exclude images and static files
http2md https://react.dev  --depth 2 --exclude "*.png" --exclude "*.css"

# Quiet mode (no progress output)
http2md https://react.dev  --depth 1 --outdir ./out -q

Parallel Crawling (Fast Mode)

Use the async command to enable parallel downloading (up to 5-10x faster):

# Run with 5 concurrent jobs (default)
http2md async https://react.dev  --depth 2 --outdir ./docs

# Increase concurrency to 10
http2md async https://react.dev --jobs 10 --outdir ./docs

• Note: This mode uses asyncio and reuses the browser instance, making it much faster but potentially less stable on extremely complex sites.
• Standard mode (http2md <url>) remains synchronous and uses a fresh browser for every page (slower but maximum isolation/reliability).

Why use Async Mode?

The async implementation (crawler_async.py) is designed for performance:

1. Architecture: Uses asyncio and playwright.async_api.
2. Resource Efficiency: Reuses a single BrowserContext across multiple pages instead of launching a new browser for every URL.
3. Concurrency: Uses a worker pool to fetch multiple pages in parallel (controlled by --jobs).
4. Speed: Can be 5-10x faster than the synchronous mode, especially on larger sites.

Crawling Options

Option	Description
--depth N	Crawl depth (0=single page, 1=links from page, etc.)
--outdir DIR	Output directory for crawled pages
--include PATTERN	Include URLs matching glob pattern (repeatable)
--exclude PATTERN	Exclude URLs matching glob pattern (repeatable)
--no-same-domain	Allow following links to other domains
--tqdm	Use tqdm progress bar
-q, --quiet	Suppress progress output

Advanced Link Extraction

http2md automatically handles Single Page Applications (SPAs) and dynamic content:

1. JavaScript Execution: It executes JavaScript to render the page fully.
2. Auto-Scrolling: It automatically attempts to scroll to the bottom of the page to trigger lazy-loading of content.
3. Dynamic Links: It extracts links from the rendered DOM (using page.evaluate), not just the static HTML. This ensures links generated by JavaScript are found.

Note: Sites using non-standard navigation (e.g., onclick on div elements instead of <a> tags) may still have limited crawlability.

Python API for Crawling

from http2md.crawler_site import crawl_site

def on_progress(url, status, current, total, html=None, markdown=None):
    print(f"[{current}/{total}] {status}: {url}")
    if html:
        print(f"  Downloaded {len(html)} bytes")

results = crawl_site(
    "https://react.dev",
    depth=2,
    outdir="./output",
    callback=on_progress,
    include=["*/api/*"],
    exclude=["*.png"]
)

Using tqdm for Progress

from http2md.crawler_site import crawl_site
from tqdm import tqdm

pbar = tqdm(unit="pages")

def tqdm_callback(url, status, current, total, html=None, markdown=None):
    pbar.total = total
    if status == "fetching":
        pbar.set_description(f"Fetching {url[:50]}")
    elif status == "done" or status.startswith("skipped"):
        pbar.update(1)
    pbar.refresh()

crawl_site(
    "https://docs.example.com",
    depth=2,
    callback=tqdm_callback
)
pbar.close()
)
pbar.close()

Python API (Async)

For maximum performance in your own scripts, use crawl_site_async:

import asyncio
from http2md.crawler_async import crawl_site_async

async def main():
    results = await crawl_site_async(
        "https://react.dev",
        depth=2,
        jobs=10,  # 10 concurrent requests
        outdir="./output_async"
    )
    print(f"Crawled {len(results)} pages")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())