par-scrape 0.8.3

A versatile web scraping tool with options for Selenium or Playwright, featuring OpenAI-powered data extraction and formatting.

PAR Scrape

PAR Scrape is a versatile web scraping tool with options for Selenium or Playwright, featuring AI-powered data extraction and formatting.

Screenshots

Features

• Web scraping using Playwright or Selenium
• AI-powered data extraction and formatting
• Can be used to crawl and extract clean markdown without AI
• Supports multiple output formats (JSON, Excel, CSV, Markdown)
• Customizable field extraction
• Token usage and cost estimation
• Prompt cache for Anthropic provider
• Uses my PAR AI Core

Known Issues

• Selenium silent mode on windows still shows message about websocket. There is no simple way to get rid of this.
• Providers other than OpenAI are hit-and-miss depending on provider / model / data being extracted.

Prompt Cache

• OpenAI will auto cache prompts that are over 1024 tokens.
• Anthropic will only cache prompts if you specify the --prompt-cache flag. Due to cache writes costing more only enable this if you intend to run multiple scrape jobs against the same url, also the cache will go stale within a couple of minutes so to reduce cost run your jobs as close together as possible.

How it works

• Data is fetch from the site using either Selenium or Playwright
• HTML is converted to clean markdown
• If you specify an output format other than markdown then the following kicks in:
  • A pydantic model is constructed from the fields you specify
  • The markdown is sent to the AI provider with the pydantic model as the the required output
  • The structured output is saved in the specified formats
• If crawling mode is enabled this process is repeated for each page in the queue until the specified max number of pages is reached

Site Crawling

Crawling currently comes in 3 modes:

• Single page which is the default
• Single level which will crawl all links on the first page and add them to the queue. Links from any pages after the first are not added to the queue
• Domain which will crawl all links on all pages as long as they below to the same top level domain (TLD).
• Paginated will be added soon

Crawling progress is stored in a sqlite database and all pages are tagged with the run name which can be specified with the --run-name / -n flag.
You can resume a crawl by specifying the same run name again.
The options --scrape-max-parallel / -P can be used to increase the scraping speed by running multiple scrapes in parallel.
The options --crawl-batch-size / -b should be set at least as high as the scrape max parallel option to ensure that the queue is always full. The options --crawl-max-pages / -M can be used to limit the total number of pages crawled in a single run.

Prerequisites

To install PAR Scrape, make sure you have Python 3.11 or higher. Python 3.14 is the default and recommended version (supports Python 3.11-3.14).

uv is recommended

Linux and Mac

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Windows

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

Installation

Installation From Source

Then, follow these steps:

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/paulrobello/par_scrape.git
   cd par_scrape
   

2. Install the package dependencies using uv:

   uv sync
   

Installation From PyPI

To install PAR Scrape from PyPI, run any of the following commands:

uv tool install par_scrape

pipx install par_scrape

Playwright Installation

To use playwright as a scraper, you must install it and its browsers using the following commands:

uv tool install playwright
playwright install chromium

Usage

To use PAR Scrape, you can run it from the command line with various options. Here's a basic example: Ensure you have the AI provider api key in your environment. You can also store your api keys in the file ~/.par_scrape.env as follows:

# AI API KEYS
OPENAI_API_KEY=
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=
GROQ_API_KEY=
XAI_API_KEY=
GOOGLE_API_KEY=
MISTRAL_API_KEY=
GITHUB_TOKEN=
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=
# Used by Bedrock
AWS_PROFILE=
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=



### Tracing (optional)
LANGCHAIN_TRACING_V2=false
LANGCHAIN_ENDPOINT=https://api.smith.langchain.com
LANGCHAIN_API_KEY=
LANGCHAIN_PROJECT=par_scrape

AI API KEYS

• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is required for Anthropic. Get a key from https://console.anthropic.com/
• OPENAI_API_KEY is required for OpenAI. Get a key from https://platform.openai.com/account/api-keys
• GITHUB_TOKEN is required for GitHub Models. Get a free key from https://github.com/marketplace/models
• GOOGLE_API_KEY is required for Google Models. Get a free key from https://console.cloud.google.com
• XAI_API_KEY is required for XAI. Get a free key from https://x.ai/api
• GROQ_API_KEY is required for Groq. Get a free key from https://console.groq.com/
• MISTRAL_API_KEY is required for Mistral. Get a free key from https://console.mistral.ai/
• OPENROUTER_KEY is required for OpenRouter. Get a key from https://openrouter.ai/
• DEEPSEEK_API_KEY is required for Deepseek. Get a key from https://platform.deepseek.com/
• AWS_PROFILE or AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY are used for Bedrock authentication. The environment must already be authenticated with AWS.
• No key required to use with Ollama, LlamaCpp, LiteLLM.

Open AI Compatible Providers

If a specify provider is not listed but has an OpenAI compatible endpoint you can use the following combo of vars:

• PARAI_AI_PROVIDER=OpenAI
• PARAI_MODEL=Your selected model
• PARAI_AI_BASE_URL=The providers OpenAI endpoint URL

Running from source

uv run par_scrape --url "https://openai.com/api/pricing/" -f "Title" -f "Description" -f "Price" -f "Cache Price" --model gpt-4o-mini --display-output md

Running if installed from PyPI

par_scrape --url "https://openai.com/api/pricing/" -f "Title" -f "Description" -f "Price" -f "Cache Price" --model gpt-4o-mini --display-output md

Options

--url                  -u      TEXT                                                                                           URL to scrape [default: https://openai.com/api/pricing/]
--output-format        -O      [md|json|csv|excel]                                                                            Output format for the scraped data [default: md]
--fields               -f      TEXT                                                                                           Fields to extract from the webpage
                                                                                                                              [default: Model, Pricing Input, Pricing Output, Cache Price]
--scraper              -s      [selenium|playwright]                                                                          Scraper to use: 'selenium' or 'playwright' [default: playwright]
--retries              -r      INTEGER                                                                                        Retry attempts for failed scrapes [default: 3]
--scrape-max-parallel  -P      INTEGER                                                                                        Max parallel fetch requests [default: 1]
--wait-type            -w      [none|pause|sleep|idle|selector|text]                                                          Method to use for page content load waiting [default: sleep]
--wait-selector        -i      TEXT                                                                                           Selector or text to use for page content load waiting. [default: None]
--headless             -h                                                                                                     Run in headless mode (for Selenium)
--sleep-time           -t      INTEGER                                                                                        Time to sleep before scrolling (in seconds) [default: 2]
--ai-provider          -a      [Ollama|LlamaCpp|OpenRouter|OpenAI|Gemini|Github|XAI|Anthropic|
                                Groq|Mistral|Deepseek|LiteLLM|Bedrock]                                                        AI provider to use for processing [default: OpenAI]
--model                -m      TEXT                                                                                           AI model to use for processing. If not specified, a default model will be used. [default: None]
--ai-base-url          -b      TEXT                                                                                           Override the base URL for the AI provider. [default: None]
--prompt-cache                                                                                                                Enable prompt cache for Anthropic provider
--reasoning-effort             [low|medium|high]                                                                              Reasoning effort level to use for o1 and o3 models. [default: None]
--reasoning-budget             INTEGER                                                                                        Maximum context size for reasoning. [default: None]
--display-output       -d      [none|plain|md|csv|json]                                                                       Display output in terminal (md, csv, or json) [default: None]
--output-folder        -o      PATH                                                                                           Specify the location of the output folder [default: output]
--silent               -q                                                                                                     Run in silent mode, suppressing output
--run-name             -n      TEXT                                                                                           Specify a name for this run. Can be used to resume a crawl Defaults to YYYYmmdd_HHMMSS
--pricing              -p      [none|price|details]                                                                           Enable pricing summary display [default: details]
--cleanup              -c      [none|before|after|both]                                                                       How to handle cleanup of output folder [default: none]
--extraction-prompt    -e      PATH                                                                                           Path to the extraction prompt file [default: None]
--crawl-type           -C      [single_page|single_level|domain]                                                              Enable crawling mode [default: single_page]
--crawl-max-pages      -M      INTEGER                                                                                        Maximum number of pages to crawl this session [default: 100]
--crawl-batch-size     -B      INTEGER                                                                                        Maximum number of pages to load from the queue at once [default: 1]
--respect-rate-limits                                                                                                         Whether to use domain-specific rate limiting [default: True]
--respect-robots                                                                                                              Whether to respect robots.txt
--crawl-delay                  INTEGER                                                                                        Default delay in seconds between requests to the same domain [default: 1]
--version              -v
--help                                                                                                                        Show this message and exit.

Examples

• Basic usage with default options:

par_scrape --url "https://openai.com/api/pricing/" -f "Model" -f "Pricing Input" -f "Pricing Output" -O json -O csv --pricing details --display-output csv

• Using Playwright, displaying JSON output and waiting for text gpt-4o to be in page before continuing:

par_scrape --url "https://openai.com/api/pricing/" -f "Title" -f "Description" -f "Price" --scraper playwright -O json -O csv -d json --pricing details -w text -i gpt-4o

• Specifying a custom model and output folder:

par_scrape --url "https://openai.com/api/pricing/" -f "Title" -f "Description" -f "Price" --model gpt-4 --output-folder ./custom_output -O json -O csv --pricing details -w text -i gpt-4o

• Running in silent mode with a custom run name:

par_scrape --url "https://openai.com/api/pricing/" -f "Title" -f "Description" -f "Price" --silent --run-name my_custom_run --pricing details -O json -O csv -w text -i gpt-4o

• Using the cleanup option to remove the output folder after scraping:

par_scrape --url "https://openai.com/api/pricing/" -f "Title" -f "Description" -f "Price" --cleanup --pricing details -O json -O csv

• Using the pause option to wait for user input before scrolling:

par_scrape --url "https://openai.com/api/pricing/" -f "Title" -f "Description" -f "Price" --pause --pricing details -O json -O csv

• Using Anthropic provider with prompt cache enabled and detailed pricing breakdown:

par_scrape -a Anthropic --prompt-cache -d csv -p details -f "Title" -f "Description" -f "Price" -f "Cache Price" -O json -O csv

• Crawling single level and only outputting markdown (No LLM or cost):

par_scrape --url "https://openai.com/api/pricing/" -O md --crawl-batch-size 5 --scrape-max-parallel 5 --crawl-type single_level

Roadmap

• API Server
• More crawling options
  • Paginated Listing crawling

Whats New

• Version 0.8.3
  • Updated dependencies and ensured Python 3.14 compatibility
  • Python 3.14 is now the default and recommended version
  • Maintains backward compatibility with Python 3.11, 3.12, and 3.13
  • Updated Pyright configuration to target Python 3.14
  • Updated all CI/CD workflows to use Python 3.14
• Version 0.8.2
  • Updated all dependencies to latest versions (anthropic, chromadb, fastapi, selenium, and more)
  • Fixed critical race conditions in database operations:
    • get_next_urls(): Now uses atomic transactions to prevent duplicate URL processing in concurrent scenarios
    • add_to_queue(): Made INSERT and UPDATE operations atomic
    • ROBOTS_PARSERS: Added thread-safe locking for concurrent access
  • Fixed logic error in crawl_delay initialization that affected all domains instead of just the target
  • Improved error handling for file operations with proper UTF-8 encoding
  • Enhanced concurrency safety for multi-threaded/multi-process crawling
• Version 0.8.1
  • Updated dependencies (ruff 0.14.2, pyright 1.1.407)
  • Ensured compatibility with Python 3.13 (now the default version)
  • Maintains backward compatibility with Python 3.11 and 3.12
• Version 0.8.0
  • Update deps and ci/cd workflows
• Version 0.7.1
  • Updated par-ai-core and other deps
• Version 0.7.0
  • Major overhaul and fixing of crawling features.
  • added --respect-robots flag to check robots.txt before scraping
  • added --respect-rate-limits to respect rate limits for domains
  • added --reasoning-effort and --reasoning-budget for o1/o3 and Sonnet 3.7
  • updated dependencies
• Version 0.6.1
  • Updated ai-core
• Version 0.6.0
  • Fixed bug where images were being striped from markdown output
  • Now uses par_ai_core for url fetching and markdown conversion
  • New Features:
    • BREAKING CHANGES:
      • New option to specify desired output formats -O which defaults to markdown only, which does not require AI
    • BEHAVIOR CHANGES:
      • Now retries 3 times on failed scrapes
    • Basic site crawling
    • Retry failed fetches
    • HTTP authentication
    • Proxy settings
  • Updated system prompt for better results
• Version 0.5.1
  • Update ai-core and dependencies
  • Now supports Deepseek, XAI and LiteLLM
  • Better pricing data
• Version 0.5.0
  • Update ai-core and dependencies
  • Now supports OpenRouter
• Version 0.4.9
  • Updated to use new par-ai-core
    • Now supports LlamaCPP and XAI Grok
    • Better cost tracking
    • Updated pricing data
    • Better error handling
  • Now supports Python 3.10
• Version 0.4.8:
  • Added Anthropic prompt cache option.
• Version 0.4.7:
  • BREAKING CHANGE: --pricing cli option now takes a string value of 'details', 'cost', or 'none'.
  • Added pool of user agents that gets randomly pulled from.
  • Updating pricing data.
  • Pricing token capture and compute now much more accurate.
• Version 0.4.6:
  • Minor bug fixes.
  • Updating pricing data.
  • Added support for Amazon Bedrock
  • Removed some unnecessary dependencies.
  • Code cleanup.
• Version 0.4.5:
  • Added new option --wait-type that allows you to specify the type of wait to use such as pause, sleep, idle, text or selector.
  • Removed --pause option as it is no longer needed with --wait-type option.
  • Playwright scraping now honors the headless mode.
  • Playwright is now the default scraper as it is much faster.
• Version 0.4.4:
  • Better Playwright scraping.
• Version 0.4.3:
  • Added option to override the base URL for the AI provider.
• Version 0.4.2:
  • The url parameter can now point to a local rawData_*.md file for easier testing of different models without having to re-fetch the data.
  • Added ability to specify file with extraction prompt.
  • Tweaked extraction prompt to work with Groq and Anthropic. Google still does not work.
  • Remove need for ~/.par-scrape-config.json
• Version 0.4.1:
  • Minor bug fixes for pricing summary.
  • Default model for google changed to "gemini-1.5-pro-exp-0827" which is free and usually works well.
• Version 0.4.0:
  • Added support for Anthropic, Google, Groq, and Ollama. (Not well tested with any providers other than OpenAI)
  • Add flag for displaying pricing summary. Defaults to False.
  • Added pricing data for Anthropic.
  • Better error handling for llm calls.
  • Updated cleanup flag to handle both before and after cleanup. Removed --remove-output-folder flag.
• Version 0.3.1:
  • Add pause and sleep-time options to control the browser and scraping delays.
  • Default headless mode to False so you can interact with the browser.
• Version 0.3.0:
  • Fixed location of config.json file.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Author

Paul Robello - [e-mail]