Scrape

What it does

When your agent uses it

• The user wants to fetch a page
• Extract content from a list of URLs
• Crawl paginated listings

Example prompts

• “/scrape”

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Non-empty output: test -s "$out_path" — or, for stdout, at least 200 bytes of content.
2. 2Not a block page — grep the output for any of these signatures (case-insensitive)
3. 3Expected markers present for the task: e.g., a product page should contain a price pattern (\$\d); an article should contain at least one…
4. 4On failure, escalation ladder

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 81f51af. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • just

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Scrape loads about 1.2k tokens when it runs, and up to ~3.1k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 111 tokens; SKILL.md has 417 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~111

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1.2k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~3.1k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from brightdata/skills at commit 81f51af, republished under its MIT licence (© brightdata). 417 words, ~1,157 tokens.

name

scrape

description

Scrape web content as clean markdown/HTML/JSON via the Bright Data CLI (`bdata scrape`). Use when the user wants to fetch a page, extract content from a list of URLs, or crawl paginated listings. Hands off to `data-feeds` for supported platforms (Amazon, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, etc.) and to `search` when URLs must be discovered first. Requires the Bright Data CLI; proactively guides install + login if missing.

if ! command -v bdata >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    echo "bdata CLI not installed — see bright-data-best-practices/references/cli-setup.md"
elif ! bdata zones >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    echo "bdata not authenticated — run: bdata login  (or: bdata login --device for SSH)"
fi

# Clean markdown (default)
bdata scrape "https://example.com/article" -f markdown -o article.md

# Raw HTML (when you need the DOM)
bdata scrape "https://example.com" -f html -o page.html

# Structured JSON (when the Unlocker returns parsed fields)
bdata scrape "https://example.com" -f json --pretty -o page.json

# Visual snapshot (saves PNG)
bdata scrape "https://example.com" -f screenshot -o page.png

# Geo-targeted (override the exit country)
bdata scrape "https://example.com" --country de -f markdown

© brightdata, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 3 other files (references) in skills/scrape of brightdata/skills.

• SKILL.md
• references/examples.md
• references/flags.md
• references/patterns.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 81f51af