web-scraping

Web Scraping

Extract structured data from websites, handling both static HTML and JavaScript-rendered content (React, Next.js, Vue, etc.).

When to Use

• User asks to "scrape", "extract", or "get data from" a website
• Target site uses client-side rendering (SPA frameworks)
• Need to interact with dynamic content (infinite scroll, lazy loading)
• API endpoints are not available or documented

Approach Selection

1. Static HTML (curl + parsing)

Use when: Site serves complete HTML without JavaScript rendering.

curl -sL 'https://example.com' | grep -oP 'pattern'
# or with jq for JSON APIs
curl -s 'https://api.example.com/data' | jq '.items[]'

Pros: Fast, lightweight, no dependencies Cons: Fails on JS-rendered content

2. Headless Browser (Puppeteer/Playwright)

Use when: Content is rendered client-side (React, Next.js, Vue, Angular).

Node.js + Puppeteer (recommended for WSL2/containers):

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
  headless: true,
  args: ['--no-sandbox', '--disable-setuid-sandbox']  // Required in WSL2/containers
});

const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com', {
  waitUntil: 'networkidle2',
  timeout: 60000
});

// Wait for dynamic content
await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 3000));

// Extract text
const content = await page.evaluate(() => document.body.innerText);

// Extract structured data
const data = await page.evaluate(() => {
  return Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('.item')).map(el => ({
    title: el.querySelector('.title')?.innerText,
    value: el.querySelector('.value')?.innerText
  }));
});

await browser.close();

Pros: Handles all JS rendering, can interact with page Cons: Slower, heavier resource usage

3. API Inspection (DevTools Network tab)

Use when: Site loads data via XHR/fetch calls.

1. Open browser DevTools → Network tab
2. Filter by XHR/Fetch
3. Find API endpoint
4. Replicate with curl/fetch

Pros: Fastest, most reliable Cons: Requires manual inspection, may need auth tokens

Alternative: Reverse-engineer from minified JS (when browser access blocked):

Method A: Direct curl (if no Cloudflare)

# Download main JS bundle
curl -s "https://example.com/assets/main-[hash].js" > /tmp/bundle.js

# Search for API patterns
grep -oP '"/[a-z_/-]{3,}"' /tmp/bundle.js | sort -u
strings /tmp/bundle.js | grep -i 'keyword' | head -20

Method B: TinyFish browser automation (if Cloudflare protected)

When curl fails due to Cloudflare Turnstile, use TinyFish to bypass protection and download JS via Chrome DevTools Protocol:

# 1. Create TinyFish browser session (bypasses Cloudflare)
# 2. Wait for challenge completion
# 3. Connect to browser via CDP WebSocket
# 4. Use Runtime.evaluate to fetch JS files
# 5. Extract API endpoints from minified code

See references/tinyfish-js-reverse-engineering.md for full workflow (tested on rpow2swap.com May 2026).

Trial-error common paths with size check:

for path in /api/listings /api/orders /listings /tokens /api/stats; do
  echo "Testing: https://example.com$path"
  timeout 3 curl -s -m 3 -o /dev/null -w "HTTP %{http_code} | Size: %{size_download} bytes\\n" \
    "https://example.com$path" 2>&1 || echo "Timeout/Error"
done

# Look for large responses (>10KB = likely data endpoint, <2KB = likely SPA HTML)

Success indicators:

• Response size >10KB → likely JSON data endpoint
• Response size <2KB → likely SPA HTML fallback
• Timeout → endpoint exists but slow/protected

See references/spa-api-discovery.md for full technique (tested on rpow2swap.com May 2026).

Success case (rpow2swap.com, May 2026):

# 1. Try common API paths with timeout
for path in /api/listings /api/tokens /listings /tokens /api/orderbook; do
  timeout 3 curl -s -m 3 -o /dev/null -w "HTTP %{http_code} | Size: %{size_download}\\n" \
    "https://example.com$path"
done

# Result: /api/listings returned 65KB (200 OK) — found it!

# 2. Fetch and inspect data
curl -s "https://example.com/api/listings" | head -c 2000
# Returns JSON array with full listing data

# 3. Build monitoring bot
# State-based change detection: track seen IDs, alert on new entries

Key insight: Many SPAs use predictable REST paths (/api/<resource>). Trial-error with timeout is faster than reverse-engineering minified JS.

3.5. Third-Party APIs (Twitter/X)

Use when: Scraping Twitter/X content (tweets, profiles, media).

Primary: vxtwitter API (no auth, works from terminal)

# Get tweet data
curl -s "https://api.vxtwitter.com/Twitter/status/{tweet_id}" | jq -r '.tweet | {text, author, likes, retweets, replies, media}'

# Get account info
curl -s "https://api.vxtwitter.com/{handle}" | jq -r '.user | {name, description, followers, website}'

# Extract quoted tweet (QRT)
curl -s "https://api.vxtwitter.com/Twitter/status/{tweet_id}" | jq -r '.qrt | {text, author, likes}'

Fallback: fxtwitter API (same structure)

curl -s "https://api.fxtwitter.com/{handle}/status/{tweet_id}"

Pros: No auth, fast, structured JSON, includes media URLs Cons: Rate limited, may lag behind real-time data

Note: Twitter's official API requires auth and has strict rate limits. Use vxtwitter/fxtwitter for read-only access.

4. Cloud Browser Services (Cloudflare bypass)

Use when: Site has Cloudflare Turnstile, bot detection, or anti-scraping measures.

Browserbase (recommended, tested May 2026):

import requests

# Create session
response = requests.post(
    "https://www.browserbase.com/v1/sessions",
    headers={"X-BB-API-Key": API_KEY, "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    json={"projectId": PROJECT_ID}
)

session = response.json()
debug_url = f"https://www.browserbase.com/v1/sessions/{session['id']}/debug"

See references/browserbase-api.md for full API reference.

Browser Use Cloud (alternative, had 404 issues May 2026):

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.browser-use.com/api/v1/run-task",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}"},
    json={"task": "Go to protected-site.com and extract data"}
)

See references/browser-use-cloud-api.md for troubleshooting.

Pros: Bypasses Cloudflare, residential proxies, no local resources Cons: Paid service, requires API key, SDK needed for automation

WSL2 / Container Considerations

Chrome sandbox issues are common in WSL2 and Docker. Always use:

args: ['--no-sandbox', '--disable-setuid-sandbox']

Python venv issues: WSL2 Ubuntu may lack python3-venv. Use Node.js approach instead or install:

sudo apt install python3.12-venv

Workflow

1. Try curl first — check if content is in initial HTML
2. Inspect Network tab — look for API endpoints
3. Use headless browser — if content is JS-rendered
4. Extract incrementally — get raw text first, then refine selectors

Pitfalls

• Don't assume static HTML — modern sites often use SSR/CSR hybrid (Next.js)
• Wait for content — add delays after page load for dynamic content
• Check robots.txt — respect crawling policies
• Rate limiting — add delays between requests for bulk scraping
• User-Agent — some sites block default headless browser UA
• Cloudflare protection — sites with Cloudflare Turnstile/challenge pages block curl and standard browsers. Use Browser Use Cloud or stealth browser libraries.
• VPS browser limitations — Hermes browser tool may fail on VPS with sandbox errors. Use --no-sandbox flag or cloud browser services.
• Browser Use API confusion — Browser Use has TWO APIs: open-source library (local, free) vs Cloud API (managed, paid). Cloud API endpoint structure is confusing (examples use /api/v1/, docs say /v3/). If getting 404 errors, see references/browser-use-cloud-api.md for troubleshooting.

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