web-scraper-toolkit 0.1.7

A powerful, standalone web scraping toolkit using Playwright and various parsers.

🕷️ Web Scraper Toolkit & MCP Server

Expertly Crafted by: Roy Dawson IV

A production-grade, multimodal scraping engine designed for AI Agents. Converts the web into LLM-ready assets (Markdown, JSON, PDF) with robust anti-bot evasion.

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🚀 The "Why": AI-First Scraping

In the era of Agentic AI, tools need to be more than just Python scripts. They need to be Token-Efficient, Self-Rectifying, and Structured.

✨ Core Design Goals

• 🤖 Hyper Model-Friendly: All tools return standardized JSON Envelopes, separating metadata from content to prevent "context pollution."
• 🔍 Intelligent Sitemap Discovery: summary-first approach prevents context flooding. Detects indices, provides counts, and offers keyword deep-search to find specific pages (e.g. "about", "contact") without reading the whole site.
• 🛡️ Robust Failover: Smart detection of anti-bot challenges (Cloudflare/403s) automatically triggers a switch from Headless to Visible browser mode to pass checks.
• 🎯 Precision Control: Use CSS Selectors (selector) and token limits (max_length) to extract exactly what you need, saving tokens and money.
• 🔄 Batch Efficiency: The explicit batch_scrape tool handles parallel processing found in high-performance agent workflows.
• ⚡ MCP Native: Exposes a full Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for instant integration with Claude Desktop, Cursor, and other agentic IDEs.
• 🔒 Privacy & Stealth: Uses playwright-stealth and randomized user agents to mimic human behavior.

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📦 Installation

Option A: PyPI (Recommended)

Install directly into your environment or agent container.

pip install web-scraper-toolkit
playwright install

Option B: From Source (Developers)

git clone https://github.com/imyourboyroy/WebScraperToolkit.git
cd WebScraperToolkit
pip install -e .
playwright install

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🏗️ Architecture & Best Practices

We support two distinct integration patterns depending on your needs:

Pattern 1: The "Agentic" Way (MCP Server)

Best for: Claude Desktop, Cursor, Custom Agent Swarms.

• Mechanism: Runs as a standalone process (stdio transport).
• Benefit: True Sandbox. If the browser crashes, your Agent survives.
• Usage: Use web-scraper-server.

Pattern 2: The "Pythonic" Way (Library)

Best for: data pipelines, cron jobs, tight integration.

• Mechanism: Direct import of WebCrawler.
• Benefit: Simplicity. No subprocess management.
• Safety: Internal scraping logic still uses ProcessPoolExecutor for isolation!

🏗️ Package Architecture

The codebase follows the Single Responsibility Principle with clean modular organization:

web_scraper_toolkit/
├── core/                    # Core utilities
│   ├── state/               # Cache, session, history management
│   ├── content/             # Text chunking, token counting
│   └── automation/          # Form filling, retry logic, utilities
├── parsers/                 # Content parsing
│   ├── extraction/          # Contact, metadata, media extraction
│   ├── search/              # Web search, SERP parsing
│   └── sitemap/             # Sitemap discovery and parsing
├── browser/                 # Playwright browser management
├── crawler/                 # Autonomous crawler engine (Proxie)
├── server/                  # MCP server
│   ├── handlers/            # Request handlers
│   └── mcp_tools/           # MCP tool implementations
├── playbook/                # Scraping playbook models
├── proxie/                  # Proxy management
└── scraper/                 # Low-level fetching engines

Key Design Features:

• core/: Centralized utilities with sub-packages for state, content, and automation
• parsers/: Content parsing with sub-packages for extraction and search
• server/mcp_tools/: Dedicated modules for Scraping, Search, Extraction, and Playbooks
• Backward Compatible: All exports available from main package imports

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🔌 MCP Server Integration

This is the primary way to use the toolkit with AI models. The server runs locally and exposes tools via the Model Context Protocol.

Running the Server

Once installed, simply run:

web-scraper-server --verbose

Connecting to Claude Desktop / Cursor

Add the following to your agent configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "web-scraper": {
      "command": "web-scraper-server",
      "args": ["--verbose"],
      "env": {
        "SCRAPER_WORKERS": "4"
      }
    }
  }
}

🧠 The "JSON Envelope" Standard

To ensure high reliability for Language Models, all tools return data in this strict JSON format:

{
  "status": "success",  // or "error"
  "meta": {
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "timestamp": "2023-10-27T10:00:00",
    "format": "markdown"
  },
  "data": "# Markdown Content of the Website..."  // The actual payload
}

Why? This allows the model to instantly check .status and handle errors gracefully without hallucinating based on error text mixed with content.

🛠️ Available MCP Tools (34 Total)

Tool	Description	Key Args
Scraping
scrape_url	The Workhorse. Scrapes a single page.	url, selector (CSS), max_length
batch_scrape	The Time Saver. Parallel processing.	urls (List), format
get_metadata	Extract JSON-LD, OpenGraph, TwitterCards.	url
screenshot	Capture visual state.	url, path
save_pdf	High-fidelity PDF renderer.	url, path
Discovery
get_sitemap	Smart Discovery. Auto-filters noise.	url, keywords (e.g. "team"), limit
crawl_site	Alias for sitemap discovery.	url
extract_contacts	Autonomous Contact Extraction (JSON).	url
batch_contacts	Parallel contact extraction (hardware-limited).	urls (List)
extract_links	NEW: Extract all hyperlinks from page.	url, filter_external
Search & Research
search_web	Standard Search (DDG/Google).	query
deep_research	The Agent. Search + Crawl + Report.	query
Form Automation
fill_form	Login/Form automation. Session persistence.	url, fields (JSON), submit_selector
extract_tables	Get structured table data.	url, table_selector
click_element	Click elements (JS triggers).	url, selector
File Operations
download_file	Download PDFs, images, files.	url, path
Autonomous
run_playbook	Autonomous Mode. Execute complex JSON playbooks.	playbook_json, proxies_json
Health & Validation
health_check	System status check.	(none)
validate_url	Pre-flight URL check.	url
detect_content_type	Detect HTML/PDF/image.	url
Configuration
configure_scraper	Browser settings (headless mode).	headless (bool)
configure_stealth	Robots.txt opt-out, stealth mode.	respect_robots, stealth_mode
configure_retry	Exponential backoff settings.	max_attempts, initial_delay
get_config	View current configuration.	(none)
Cache Management
clear_cache	Clear response cache.	(none)
get_cache_stats	View cache hits/misses/size.	(none)
Session Management
clear_session	Clear browser session (cookies).	session_id
new_session	Start fresh browser session.	(none)
list_sessions	List saved sessions.	(none)
Content Processing
chunk_text	Split text for LLM context.	text, max_chunk_size, overlap
get_token_count	Estimate token count.	text, model
truncate_text	Truncate to token limit.	text, max_tokens
History
get_history	Get scraping history.	limit
clear_history	Clear history.	(none)

Note: By default, the toolkit respects robots.txt. To bypass (for authorized testing), call:

configure_stealth(respect_robots=false)

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🔍 Intelligent Sitemap Discovery

Unlike standard tools that dump thousands of URLs, this toolkit is designed for Agent Context Windows.

1. Summary First

Returns a structural summary of Sitemaps before extraction.

2. Context-Aware Filtering

Use get_sitemap(url, keywords="contact") to find specific pages without crawling the entire site. The system recursively checks nested sitemaps but filters out low-value content (products, archives) automatically.

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📞 Autonomous Contact Extraction

Built-in logic to extract business intelligence from any page.

Capabilities:

• Emails: Decodes Cloudflare-protected emails automatically.
• Phones: Extracts and formats international phone numbers.
• Socials: Identifies social media profiles (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.).

MCP Usage: extract_contacts(url="https://example.com/contact")

Example Output:

**Identity**
- Business Name: Busy People
- Author Name: Roy Dawson

**Emails**
- [e-mail]

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🦾 Advanced Usage: Autonomous Crawler (Proxie & Playbooks)

For complex, multi-step missions, use the Autonomous Crawler. It combines Playbooks (Strategy) with Proxie (Resilience).

1. Define a Playbook

Create a strictly typed strategy using Playbook and Rule models.

from web_scraper_toolkit.playbook import Playbook, Rule, PlaybookSettings

playbook = Playbook(
    name="Forum Scraper",
    base_urls=["https://forum.example.com"],
    rules=[
        # Follow pagination
        Rule(type="follow", regex=r"/page-\d+"),
        # Extract specific thread data
        Rule(type="extract", regex=r"/threads/.*", extract_fields=[
            {"name": "title", "selector": "h1.thread-title"},
            {"name": "author", "selector": ".username"}
        ])
    ],
    settings=PlaybookSettings(
        respect_robots=True,
        validation_enabled=True,
        ai_context="Extract user sentiment from forum posts."
    )
)

2. Configure Proxies & Resilience

Manage IP rotation and security with ProxieConfig.

from web_scraper_toolkit.proxie import ProxieConfig, ProxyManager, Proxy

# Load settings (can use config.json)
config = ProxieConfig(
    enforce_secure_ip=True,  # Kill-Switch if Real IP leaks
    max_retries=5,
    rotation_strategy="health_weighted"
)

# Initialize Manager
manager = ProxyManager(config, proxies=[
    Proxy(host="1.2.3.4", port=8080, username="user", password="pass"),
    # ...
])

3. Launch Mission

from web_scraper_toolkit.crawler import ProxieCrawler

crawler = ProxieCrawler(playbook, manager)
await crawler.run()
# Results saved to results_Forum_Scraper.jsonl

💻 CLI Usage (Standalone)

For manual scraping or testing without the MCP server:

# Basic Markdown Extraction (Best for RAG)
web-scraper --url https://example.com --format markdown

# High-Fidelity PDF with Auto-Scroll
web-scraper --url https://example.com --format pdf

# Batch process a list of URLs from a file
web-scraper --input urls.txt --format json --workers 4

# Sitemap to JSON (Site Mapping)
web-scraper --input https://example.com/sitemap.xml --site-tree --format json

🛠️ CLI Reference

Option	Shorthand	Description	Default
--url	-u	Single target URL to scrape.	None
--input	-i	Input file (.txt, .csv, .json, sitemap .xml) or URL.	None
--format	-f	Output: markdown, pdf, screenshot, json, html.	markdown
--headless		Run browser in headless mode. (Off/Visible by default for stability).	False
--workers	-w	Number of concurrent workers. Pass max for CPU - 1.	1
--merge	-m	Merge all outputs into a single file.	False
--contacts		Autonomously extract emails/phones to output.	False
--site-tree		Extract URLs from sitemap input without crawling.	False
--verbose	-v	Enable verbose logging.	False

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🤖 Python API

Integrate the WebCrawler directly into your Python applications.

import asyncio
from web_scraper_toolkit import WebCrawler, BrowserConfig

async def agent_task():
    # 1. Configure
    config = BrowserConfig(
        headless=True,
        timeout=30000
    )
    
    # 2. Instantiate
    crawler = WebCrawler(config=config)
    
    # 3. Run
    results = await crawler.run(
        urls=["https://example.com"],
        output_format="markdown",
        output_dir="./memory"
    )
    print(results)

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

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⚙️ Global Configuration

The toolkit supports a centralized config.json at the project root for managing defaults across all tools.

Example config.json:

{
  "browser": {
    "headless": true,
    "browser_type": "chromium",
    "viewport_width": 1280,
    "viewport_height": 800,
    "timeout": 30000
  },
  "parser": {
    "ignore_links": false,
    "ignore_images": false,
    "body_width": 0,
    "extract_opengraph": true,
    "extract_twitter_cards": true
  },
  "sitemap": {
    "max_concurrent": 4,
    "max_depth": 3,
    "request_timeout": 15
  },
  "http": {
    "connection_pool_limit": 100,
    "connection_per_host": 10,
    "dns_cache_ttl": 300,
    "total_timeout": 30,
    "connect_timeout": 10
  },
  "retry": {
    "max_attempts": 3,
    "initial_delay_seconds": 1.0,
    "max_delay_seconds": 30.0,
    "exponential_base": 2.0,
    "jitter": true
  },
  "proxie": {
    "validation_url": "https://httpbin.org/ip",
    "timeout_seconds": 10,
    "max_concurrent_checks": 50,
    "rotation_strategy": "round_robin",
    "enforce_secure_ip": true,
    "max_retries": 3,
    "cooldown_seconds": 300
  },
  "crawler": {
    "default_user_agent": "WebScraperToolkit/1.0 (Crawler)",
    "default_max_depth": 3,
    "default_max_pages": 100,
    "default_crawl_delay": 1.0,
    "global_ignore_robots": false,
    "request_timeout": 30
  },
  "playbook": {
    "respect_robots": true,
    "max_depth": 3,
    "max_pages": 100,
    "crawl_delay": 1.0,
    "ai_context": false,
    "validation_enabled": false,
    "reuse_rules": true
  },
  "cache": {
    "enabled": true,
    "ttl_seconds": 300,
    "directory": "./cache",
    "max_size_mb": 100
  },
  "session": {
    "persist": true,
    "directory": "./sessions",
    "reuse_browser": true
  },
  "chunking": {
    "enabled": false,
    "max_chunk_size": 8000,
    "overlap": 200
  },
  "temp_directory": "./temp",
  "server": {
    "name": "Web Scraper Toolkit",
    "port": 8000,
    "host": "localhost",
    "log_level": "INFO"
  }
}

This file allows external agents (like Cursor or Claude) to inspect and modify behavioral defaults without code changes.

Server Environment Variables

Override specific server settings via ENV:

Variable	Description	Default
SCRAPER_WORKERS	Number of concurrent browser processes.	1
SCRAPER_VERBOSE	Enable debug logs (true/false).	false

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✅ Verification & Testing

This project includes a comprehensive verification suite to ensure strict configuration enforcement, proxy resilience, and data integrity.

Run the suite:

python tests/verify_suite.py

Example Output (Verified):

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Running Test 01: Proxy Resilience (Hail Mary)                               |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
✔ Proxy Revival Triggered and Succeeded
Verify ProxyManager attempts 'Hail Mary' retry when all proxies are dead. ... ok

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Running Test 02: Crawler Integrity (Persistence & Optimization)             |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
✔ Persistence Verified (results_IntegrityTest.jsonl)
✔ Rule Reuse Optimization Verified
Verify Crawler Rule Reuse and Persistence. ... ok

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Running Test 03: BrowserConfig Enforcement                                  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
✔ BrowserConfig Enforced
Verify WebCrawler strictly enforces BrowserConfig. ... ok

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 3 tests in 2.383s

OK
SUCCESS: All tests passed.

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📜 License

MIT License.

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Created with ❤️ by the Intelligence of Roy Dawson IV.