github apify/crawlee v3.0.0
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latest releases: v3.12.0, v3.11.5, v3.11.4...
2 years ago

Crawlee is the spiritual successor to Apify SDK, so we decided to keep the versioning and release Crawlee as v3.

Crawlee vs Apify SDK

Up until version 3 of apify, the package contained both scraping related tools and Apify platform related helper methods. With v3 we are splitting the whole project into two main parts:

  • Crawlee, the new web-scraping library, available as crawlee package on NPM
  • Actor SDK, helpers for the Apify platform, available as apify package on NPM

Moreover, the Crawlee library is published as several packages under @crawlee namespace:

  • @crawlee/core: the base for all the crawler implementations, also contains things like Request, RequestQueue, RequestList or Dataset classes
  • @crawlee/basic: exports BasicCrawler
  • @crawlee/cheerio: exports CheerioCrawler
  • @crawlee/browser: exports BrowserCrawler (which is used for creating @crawlee/playwright and @crawlee/puppeteer)
  • @crawlee/playwright: exports PlaywrightCrawler
  • @crawlee/puppeteer: exports PuppeteerCrawler
  • @crawlee/memory-storage: @apify/storage-local alternative
  • @crawlee/browser-pool: previously browser-pool package
  • @crawlee/utils: utility methods
  • @crawlee/types: holds TS interfaces mainly about the StorageClient

Installing Crawlee

As Crawlee is not yet released as latest, we need to install from the next distribution tag!

Most of the Crawlee packages are extending and reexporting each other, so it's enough to install just the one you plan on using, e.g. @crawlee/playwright if you plan on using playwright - it already contains everything from the @crawlee/browser package, which includes everything from @crawlee/basic, which includes everything from @crawlee/core. 

npm install crawlee@next

Or if all we need is cheerio support, we can install only @crawlee/cheerio 

npm install @crawlee/cheerio@next

When using playwright or puppeteer, we still need to install those dependencies explicitly - this allows the users to be in control of which version will be used. 

npm install crawlee@next playwright
# or npm install @crawlee/playwright@next playwright

Alternatively we can also use the crawlee meta-package which contains (re-exports) most of the @crawlee/* packages, and therefore contains all the crawler classes.

Sometimes you might want to use some utility methods from @crawlee/utils, so you might want to install that as well. This package contains some utilities that were previously available under Apify.utils. Browser related utilities can be also found in the crawler packages (e.g. @crawlee/playwright).

Full TypeScript support

Both Crawlee and Actor SDK are full TypeScript rewrite, so they include up-to-date types in the package. For your TypeScript crawlers we recommend using our predefined TypeScript configuration from @apify/tsconfig package. Don't forget to set the module and target to ES2022 or above to be able to use top level await.

The @apify/tsconfig config has noImplicitAny enabled, you might want to disable it during the initial development as it will cause build failures if you left some unused local variables in your code. 

{
    "extends": "@apify/tsconfig",
    "compilerOptions": {
        "module": "ES2022",
        "target": "ES2022",
        "outDir": "dist",
        "lib": ["DOM"]
    },
    "include": [
        "./src/**/*"
    ]
}

Docker build

For Dockerfile we recommend using multi-stage build so you don't install the dev dependencies like TypeScript in your final image: 

# using multistage build, as we need dev deps to build the TS source code
FROM apify/actor-node:16 AS builder

# copy all files, install all dependencies (including dev deps) and build the project
COPY . ./
RUN npm install --include=dev \
    && npm run build

# create final image
FROM apify/actor-node:16
# copy only necessary files
COPY --from=builder /usr/src/app/package*.json ./
COPY --from=builder /usr/src/app/README.md ./
COPY --from=builder /usr/src/app/dist ./dist
COPY --from=builder /usr/src/app/apify.json ./apify.json
COPY --from=builder /usr/src/app/INPUT_SCHEMA.json ./INPUT_SCHEMA.json

# install only prod deps
RUN npm --quiet set progress=false \
    && npm install --only=prod --no-optional \
    && echo "Installed NPM packages:" \
    && (npm list --only=prod --no-optional --all || true) \
    && echo "Node.js version:" \
    && node --version \
    && echo "NPM version:" \
    && npm --version

# run compiled code
CMD npm run start:prod

Browser fingerprints

Previously we had a magical stealth option in the puppeteer crawler that enabled several tricks aiming to mimic the real users as much as possible. While this worked to a certain degree, we decided to replace it with generated browser fingerprints.

In case we don't want to have dynamic fingerprints, we can disable this behaviour via useFingerprints in browserPoolOptions: 

const crawler = new PlaywrightCrawler({
   browserPoolOptions: {
       useFingerprints: false,
   },
});

Session cookie method renames

Previously, if we wanted to get or add cookies for the session that would be used for the request, we had to call session.getPuppeteerCookies() or session.setPuppeteerCookies(). Since this method could be used for any of our crawlers, not just PuppeteerCrawler, the methods have been renamed to session.getCookies() and session.setCookies() respectively. Otherwise, their usage is exactly the same!

Memory storage

When we store some data or intermediate state (like the one RequestQueue holds), we now use @crawlee/memory-storage by default. It is an alternative to the @apify/storage-local, that stores the state inside memory (as opposed to SQLite database used by @apify/storage-local). While the state is stored in memory, it also dumps it to the file system so we can observe it, as well as respects the existing data stored in KeyValueStore (e.g. the INPUT.json file).

When we want to run the crawler on Apify platform, we need to use Actor.init or Actor.main, which will automatically switch the storage client to ApifyClient when on the Apify platform.

We can still use the @apify/storage-local, to do it, first install it pass it to the Actor.init or Actor.main options:

@apify/storage-local v2.1.0+ is required for crawlee 

import { Actor } from 'apify';
import { ApifyStorageLocal } from '@apify/storage-local';

const storage = new ApifyStorageLocal(/* options like `enableWalMode` belong here */);
await Actor.init({ storage });

Purging of the default storage

Previously the state was preserved between local runs, and we had to use --purge argument of the apify-cli. With Crawlee, this is now the default behaviour, we purge the storage automatically on Actor.init/main call. We can opt out of it via purge: false in the Actor.init options.

Renamed crawler options and interfaces

Some options were renamed to better reflect what they do. We still support all the old parameter names too, but not at the TS level.

  • handleRequestFunction -> requestHandler
  • handlePageFunction -> requestHandler
  • handleRequestTimeoutSecs -> requestHandlerTimeoutSecs
  • handlePageTimeoutSecs -> requestHandlerTimeoutSecs
  • requestTimeoutSecs -> navigationTimeoutSecs
  • handleFailedRequestFunction -> failedRequestHandler

We also renamed the crawling context interfaces, so they follow the same convention and are more meaningful:

  • CheerioHandlePageInputs -> CheerioCrawlingContext
  • PlaywrightHandlePageFunction -> PlaywrightCrawlingContext
  • PuppeteerHandlePageFunction -> PuppeteerCrawlingContext

Context aware helpers

Some utilities previously available under Apify.utils namespace are now moved to the crawling context and are context aware. This means they have some parameters automatically filled in from the context, like the current Request instance or current Page object, or the RequestQueue bound to the crawler.

Enqueuing links

One common helper that received more attention is the enqueueLinks. As mentioned above, it is context aware - we no longer need pass in the requestQueue or page arguments (or the cheerio handle $). In addition to that, it now offers 3 enqueuing strategies:

  • EnqueueStrategy.All ('all'): Matches any URLs found
  • EnqueueStrategy.SameHostname ('same-hostname') Matches any URLs that have the same subdomain as the base URL (default)
  • EnqueueStrategy.SameDomain ('same-domain') Matches any URLs that have the same domain name. For example, https://wow.an.example.com and https://example.com will both be matched for a base url of https://example.com.

This means we can even call enqueueLinks() without any parameters. By default, it will go through all the links found on current page and filter only those targeting the same subdomain.

Moreover, we can specify patterns the URL should match via globs: 

const crawler = new PlaywrightCrawler({
    async requestHandler({ enqueueLinks }) {
        await enqueueLinks({
            globs: ['https://apify.com/*/*'],
            // we can also use `regexps` and `pseudoUrls` keys here
        });
    },
});

Implicit RequestQueue instance

All crawlers now have the RequestQueue instance automatically available via crawler.getRequestQueue() method. It will create the instance for you if it does not exist yet. This mean we no longer need to create the RequestQueue instance manually, and we can just use crawler.addRequests() method described underneath.

We can still create the RequestQueue explicitly, the crawler.getRequestQueue() method will respect that and return the instance provided via crawler options.

crawler.addRequests()

We can now add multiple requests in batches. The newly added addRequests method will handle everything for us. It enqueues the first 1000 requests and resolves, while continuing with the rest in the background, again in a smaller 1000 items batches, so we don't fall into any API rate limits. This means the crawling will start almost immediately (within few seconds at most), something previously possible only with a combination of RequestQueue and RequestList. 

// will resolve right after the initial batch of 1000 requests is added
const result = await crawler.addRequests([/* many requests, can be even millions */]);

// if we want to wait for all the requests to be added, we can await the `waitForAllRequestsToBeAdded` promise
await result.waitForAllRequestsToBeAdded;

Less verbose error logging

Previously an error thrown from inside request handler resulted in full error object being logged. With Crawlee, we log only the error message as a warning as long as we know the request will be retried. If you want to enable verbose logging like in v2, use the CRAWLEE_VERBOSE_LOG env var.

Removal of requestAsBrowser

In v1 we replaced the underlying implementation of requestAsBrowser to be just a proxy over calling got-scraping - our custom extension to got that tries to mimic the real browsers as much as possible. With v3, we are removing the requestAsBrowser, encouraging the use of got-scraping directly.

For easier migration, we also added context.sendRequest() helper that allows processing the context bound Request object through got-scraping: 

const crawler = new BasicCrawler({
    async requestHandler({ sendRequest, log }) {
        // we can use the options parameter to override gotScraping options
        const res = await sendRequest({ responseType: 'json' });
        log.info('received body', res.body);
    },
});

How to use sendRequest()?

See the Got Scraping guide.

Removed options

The useInsecureHttpParser option has been removed. It's permanently set to true in order to better mimic browsers' behavior.

Got Scraping automatically performs protocol negotiation, hence we removed the useHttp2 option. It's set to true - 100% of browsers nowadays are capable of HTTP/2 requests. Oh, more and more of the web is using it too!

Renamed options

In the requestAsBrowser approach, some of the options were named differently. Here's a list of renamed options:

payload

This options represents the body to send. It could be a string or a Buffer. However there is no payload option anymore. You need to use body instead. Or, if you wish to send JSON, json. Here's an example: 

// Before:
await Apify.utils.requestAsBrowser({ …, payload: 'Hello, world!' });
await Apify.utils.requestAsBrowser({ …, payload: Buffer.from('c0ffe', 'hex') });
await Apify.utils.requestAsBrowser({ …, json: { hello: 'world' } });

// After:
await gotScraping({ …, body: 'Hello, world!' });
await gotScraping({ …, body: Buffer.from('c0ffe', 'hex') });
await gotScraping({ …, json: { hello: 'world' } });
ignoreSslErrors

It has been renamed to https.rejectUnauthorized. By default it's set to false for covenience. However, if you want to make sure the connection is secure, you can do the following: 

// Before:
await Apify.utils.requestAsBrowser({ …, ignoreSslErrors: false });

// After:
await gotScraping({ …, https: { rejectUnauthorized: true } });

Please note: the meanings are opposite! So we needed to invert the values as well.

header-generator options

useMobileVersion, languageCode and countryCode no longer exist. Instead, you need to use headerGeneratorOptions directly: 

// Before:
await Apify.utils.requestAsBrowser({
    …,
    useMobileVersion: true,
    languageCode: 'en',
    countryCode: 'US',
});

// After:
await gotScraping({
    …,
    headerGeneratorOptions: {
        devices: ['mobile'], // or ['desktop']
        locales: ['en-US'],
    },
});
timeoutSecs

In order to set a timeout, use timeout.request (which is milliseconds now). 

// Before:
await Apify.utils.requestAsBrowser({
    …,
    timeoutSecs: 30,
});

// After:
await gotScraping({
    …,
    timeout: {
        request: 30 * 1000,
    },
});
throwOnHttpErrors

throwOnHttpErrors → throwHttpErrors. This options throws on unsuccessful HTTP status codes, for example 404. By default, it's set to false.

decodeBody

decodeBody → decompress. This options decompresses the body. Defaults to true - please do not change this or websites will break (unless you know what you're doing!).

abortFunction

This function used to make the promise throw on specific responses, if it returned true. However it wasn't that useful.

You probably want to cancel the request instead, which you can do in the following way: 

const promise = gotScraping(…);

promise.on('request', request => {
    // Please note this is not a Got Request instance, but a ClientRequest one.
    // https://nodejs.org/api/http.html#class-httpclientrequest

    if (request.protocol !== 'https:') {
        // Unsecure request, abort.
        promise.cancel();

        // If you set `isStream` to `true`, please use `stream.destroy()` instead.
    }
});

const response = await promise;

Removal of browser pool plugin mixing

Previously, you were able to have a browser pool that would mix Puppeteer and Playwright plugins (or even your own custom plugins if you've built any). As of this version, that is no longer allowed, and creating such a browser pool will cause an error to be thrown (it's expected that all plugins that will be used are of the same type).

:::info Confused?

As an example, this change disallows a pool to mix Puppeteer with Playwright. You can still create pools that use multiple Playwright plugins, each with a different launcher if you want!

:::

Handling requests outside of browser

One small feature worth mentioning is the ability to handle requests with browser crawlers outside the browser. To do that, we can use a combination of Request.skipNavigation and context.sendRequest().

Take a look at how to achieve this by checking out the Skipping navigation for certain requests example!

Logging

Crawlee exports the default log instance directly as a named export. We also have a scoped log instance provided in the crawling context - this one will log messages prefixed with the crawler name and should be preferred for logging inside the request handler. 

const crawler = new CheerioCrawler({
    async requestHandler({ log, request }) {
        log.info(`Opened ${request.loadedUrl}`);
    },
});

Auto-saved crawler state

Every crawler instance now has useState() method that will return a state object we can use. It will be automatically saved when persistState event occurs. The value is cached, so we can freely call this method multiple times and get the exact same reference. No need to worry about saving the value either, as it will happen automatically. 

const crawler = new CheerioCrawler({
    async requestHandler({ crawler }) {
        const state = await crawler.useState({ foo: [] as number[] });
        // just change the value, no need to care about saving it
        state.foo.push(123);
    },
});

Actor SDK

The Apify platform helpers can be now found in the Actor SDK (apify NPM package). It exports the Actor class that offers following static helpers:

  • ApifyClient shortcuts: addWebhook(), call(), callTask(), metamorph()
  • helpers for running on Apify platform: init(), exit(), fail(), main(), isAtHome(), createProxyConfiguration()
  • storage support: getInput(), getValue(), openDataset(), openKeyValueStore(), openRequestQueue(), pushData(), setValue()
  • events support: on(), off()
  • other utilities: getEnv(), newClient(), reboot()

Actor.main is now just a syntax sugar around calling Actor.init() at the beginning and Actor.exit() at the end (plus wrapping the user function in try/catch block). All those methods are async and should be awaited - with node 16 we can use the top level await for that. In other words, following is equivalent: 

import { Actor } from 'apify';

await Actor.init();
// your code
await Actor.exit('Crawling finished!');
import { Actor } from 'apify';

await Actor.main(async () => {
    // your code
}, { statusMessage: 'Crawling finished!' });

Actor.init() will conditionally set the storage implementation of Crawlee to the ApifyClient when running on the Apify platform, or keep the default (memory storage) implementation otherwise. It will also subscribe to the websocket events (or mimic them locally). Actor.exit() will handle the tear down and calls process.exit() to ensure our process won't hang indefinitely for some reason.

Events

Apify SDK exports Apify.events, which is an EventEmitter instance. With Crawlee, the events are managed by EventManager class instead. We can either access it via Actor.eventManager getter, or use Actor.on and Actor.off shortcuts instead. 

-Apify.events.on(...);
+Actor.on(...);

We can also get the EventManager instance via Configuration.getEventManager().

In addition to the existing events, we now have an exit event fired when calling Actor.exit() (which is called at the end of Actor.main()). This event allows you to gracefully shut down any resources when Actor.exit is called.

Smaller/internal breaking changes

  • Apify.call() is now just a shortcut for running ApifyClient.actor(actorId).call(input, options), while also taking the token inside env vars into account
  • Apify.callTask() is now just a shortcut for running ApifyClient.task(taskId).call(input, options), while also taking the token inside env vars into account
  • Apify.metamorph() is now just a shortcut for running ApifyClient.task(taskId).metamorph(input, options), while also taking the ACTOR_RUN_ID inside env vars into account
  • Apify.waitForRunToFinish() has been removed, use ApifyClient.waitForFinish() instead
  • Actor.main/init purges the storage by default
  • remove purgeLocalStorage helper, move purging to the storage class directly
    • StorageClient interface now has optional purge method
    • purging happens automatically via Actor.init() (you can opt out via purge: false in the options of init/main methods)
  • QueueOperationInfo.request is no longer available
  • Request.handledAt is now string date in ISO format
  • Request.inProgress and Request.reclaimed are now Sets instead of POJOs
  • injectUnderscore from puppeteer utils has been removed
  • APIFY_MEMORY_MBYTES is no longer taken into account, use CRAWLEE_AVAILABLE_MEMORY_RATIO instead
  • some AutoscaledPool options are no longer available:
    • cpuSnapshotIntervalSecs and memorySnapshotIntervalSecs has been replaced with top level systemInfoIntervalMillis configuration
    • maxUsedCpuRatio has been moved to the top level configuration
  • ProxyConfiguration.newUrlFunction can be async. .newUrl() and .newProxyInfo() now return promises.
  • prepareRequestFunction and postResponseFunction options are removed, use navigation hooks instead
  • gotoFunction and gotoTimeoutSecs are removed
  • removed compatibility fix for old/broken request queues with null Request props
  • fingerprintsOptions renamed to fingerprintOptions (fingerprints -> fingerprint).
  • fingerprintOptions now accept useFingerprintCache and fingerprintCacheSize (instead of useFingerprintPerProxyCache and fingerprintPerProxyCacheSize, which are now no longer available). This is because the cached fingerprints are no longer connected to proxy URLs but to sessions.

Full Changelog: v2.3.2...v3.0.0

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