Apify Reference Architecture

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Designing scraping infrastructure
• Building multi-Actor pipelines
• Integrating Apify into a larger system architecture
• With apify architecture

Example prompts

• “apify architecture”
• “apify best practices”
• “apify project structure”
• “/apify-reference-architecture”

Requirements

• Node.js
• A credential in APIFY_TOKEN
• Compatibility (from SKILL.md): Designed for Claude Code
• Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): Read, Grep

Workflow steps

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

1. 1Standalone Actor — one scraper deployed to the Apify platform.
2. 2Multi-Actor Pipeline — a discover → scrape → transform chain of Actors.
3. 3Full-Stack Integration — an application using Apify as a data source behind a service layer.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit cfae287. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

  • Read
  • Grep

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • npm

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

• Network

  Links to these hosts (documentation or services it may open):

  • docs.apify.com

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

• Credentials

  Names these keys or tokens, usually read from environment variables:

  • APIFY_TOKEN

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

• Compatibility

  Designed for Claude Code

  From compatibility in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

Context cost

Apify Reference Architecture loads about 1.5k tokens when it runs, and up to ~4.6k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 91 tokens; SKILL.md has 537 words of instructions outside code blocks.

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

~91

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

~1.5k

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

~4.6k

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 jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace at commit cfae287, republished under its MIT licence (© jeremylongshore). 537 words, ~1,517 tokens.

name

apify-reference-architecture

description

Production-grade architecture patterns for Apify-powered applications. Use when designing scraping infrastructure, building multi-Actor pipelines, or integrating Apify into a larger system architecture. Trigger with "apify architecture", "apify best practices", "apify project structure", "scraping architecture", "apify system design".

allowed-tools

Read, Grep

compatibility

Designed for Claude Code

version

1.5.0

license

MIT

author

Jeremy Longshore <jeremy@intentsolutions.io>

tags

saas, scraping, automation, apify

=== Pipeline Summary ===
Discovered: 320 URLs
Scraped:    298 items
Clean:      271 items
Total cost: $0.4120

// src/main.ts
import { Actor } from 'apify';
import { CheerioCrawler } from 'crawlee';
import { router } from './routes/listing';
import { validateInput, ScraperInput } from './types';

await Actor.main(async () => {
  const input = validateInput(await Actor.getInput<ScraperInput>());
  const crawler = new CheerioCrawler({
    requestHandler: router,
    maxRequestsPerCrawl: input.maxItems ?? 100,
    maxConcurrency: input.concurrency ?? 10,
  });
  await crawler.run(input.startUrls.map(s => s.url));
});

const apify = new ApifyService(process.env.APIFY_TOKEN!);
const { runId } = await apify.startScrape(['https://example.com']);
const results = await apify.getResults<ProductOutput>(runId);

© jeremylongshore, 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 2 other files (references) in skills/.curated/apify-reference-architecture of jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace.

• SKILL.md
• references/architecture-patterns.md
• references/implementation.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit cfae287