Quick: copy this and run

Auth (hosted only): Authorization: Bearer $CRW_API_KEY. Self-hosted (http://localhost:3000) needs no header.

Body:

{ "query": string, "limit": number (default 5, max 20), "lang"?: "en", "tbs"?: "qdr:d|w|m|y", "sources"?: ["web"|"news"|"images"] }

Python (stdlib only — defaults to hosted, fails loudly if key is missing)

#!/usr/bin/env python3 """Search CRW and print top results as JSON.""" import json, os, sys, urllib.request API_KEY = os.environ.get("CRW_API_KEY") # Default to the hosted API. Self-hosting? Set CRW_API_URL=http://localhost:3000 BASE = os.environ.get("CRW_API_URL", "https://api.fastcrw.com") URL = f"{BASE}/v1/search" headers = {"Content-Type": "application/json"} if API_KEY: headers["Authorization"] = f"Bearer {API_KEY}" elif BASE.startswith("https://api.fastcrw.com"): sys.exit("error: CRW_API_KEY is required for the hosted API. " "Get one at https://fastcrw.com (500 free credits) " "or set CRW_API_URL=http://localhost:3000 to self-host.") req = urllib.request.Request( URL, data=json.dumps({"query": "renewable energy trends 2024", "limit": 3}).encode(), headers=headers, method="POST", ) with urllib.request.urlopen(req) as r: body = json.loads(r.read()) # body == {"success": true, "data": [...]} # Results live under body["data"]. Each row has `title`, `url`, `snippet`, # `description`, `position`, `score`, `category` — print the LLM-ready subset. print(json.dumps( [{"title": x["title"], "url": x["url"], "snippet": x["snippet"]} for x in body["data"]], indent=2, )) # Run with: python3 search.py (file is python3-only — no `python` alias needed)

cURL

curl -X POST https://api.fastcrw.com/v1/search \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $CRW_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"query":"renewable energy trends 2024","limit":3}'

CLI (one-shot LLM-ready output)

The crw CLI projects directly to the title/url/snippet schema with --json --fields — no jq reshape needed:

# Install: brew install us/crw/crw (or: cargo install crw-cli) crw search "renewable energy trends 2024" --json --fields title,url,snippet --limit 3 # Available fields: title, url, description, snippet, position, score, category # --json is shorthand for --format json (also accepts --format text|markdown) # Self-hosted: no auth. Hosted: export CRW_API_KEY=crw_live_...

Response shape

{ "success": true, "data": [ {"url": "https://...", "title": "...", "description": "...", "snippet": "...", "position": 1, "score": 9.5} ] }

Other endpoints

POST /v1/scrape {"url":"...","formats":["markdown"]} — one URL → markdown

POST /v1/map {"url":"...","limit":50} — discover URLs

POST /v1/crawl {"url":"...","maxPages":5} — async multi-page; poll GET /v1/crawl/{id}

POST /v1/scrape with formats:["json"] + jsonOptions.schema — structured extract

Authentication

CRW keeps auth simple: use a Bearer token on the hosted API, and enable the same pattern on self-hosted deployments only when you need it.

Hosted API

Every authenticated request to the hosted API uses:

Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

Example:

curl -X POST https://fastcrw.com/api/v1/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com","formats":["markdown"]}'

Self-Hosted API

Self-hosted CRW does not require auth unless you configure API keys.

Set one or more keys in config:

[auth]
api_keys = ["fc-key-1234", "fc-key-5678"]

Once keys are configured, every route under /v1/* and /mcp requires the same Bearer header.

Behavior

No keys configured: self-hosted API routes are open
Keys configured: /v1/* and /mcp require Authorization: Bearer ...
/health always stays public

Error Cases

{
  "success": false,
  "error": "Missing Authorization header"
}

{
  "success": false,
  "error": "Invalid API key"
}

Common Mistakes

Forgetting the Bearer prefix
Mixing a hosted key with a self-hosted deployment
Turning on auth locally and forgetting that MCP over HTTP will also need the header

CRW — open-source web scraper & crawler (Firecrawl-compatible)