Firecrawl Build Scrape

Use this when the application already has the URL and needs content from one page.

Use This When

• the feature starts from a known URL
• you need page content for retrieval, summarization, enrichment, or monitoring
• you want the default extraction primitive before considering /interact

Default Recommendations

• Return markdown unless the feature truly needs another format.
• Use onlyMainContent for article-like pages where nav and chrome add noise.
• Add waits or other rendering options only when the page needs them.

Freshness and Liveness

• Firecrawl reuses recently indexed content, which is what makes repeat reads of the same URL fast. Set maxAge (milliseconds) to bound how old a reused copy may be, or maxAge: 0 to skip index reuse for a freshness-critical read.
• Read metadata.cacheState and metadata.cachedAt to see what you actually got.
• A successful scrape reports what the page returned. Whether the thing the page describes is still active is a source-specific judgment your code makes.
• See references/freshness-and-liveness.md for the tradeoff, the metadata, and the decision rule…