Quick Start: Node.js / TypeScript

Make your first API call with Node.js and parse the HTML response with cheerio.

Checking API key...

Prerequisites

Node.js 18+ (for built-in fetch) or Node.js 14+ with node-fetch
A FastWebScraper API key (get one free)

Installation

Install cheerio for HTML parsing. If you're on Node.js 18+, fetch is built-in. For older versions, install node-fetch as well.

npm install cheerio

Optional for Node.js < 18: npm install node-fetch

Sync Scraping (Simple)

The sync endpoint waits for the scrape to complete and returns the HTML in a single response. Best for quick scripts and testing.

// scrape.ts
const response = await fetch('https://api.fastwebscraper.com', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'X-API-Key': 'YOUR_API_KEY',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    url: 'https://example.com',
    mode: 'auto',
  }),
});

const result = await response.json();

if (!response.ok) {
  console.error('Error:', result.error);
  process.exit(1);
}

console.log('Status code:', result.data.statusCode);
console.log('HTML length:', result.data.html.length);

Async Scraping (Production)

The async endpoint returns a job ID immediately. Poll for the result when it's ready. Use this for production workloads and batch processing.

// scrape-async.ts

// Step 1: Submit the scrape job
const submitResponse = await fetch('https://api.fastwebscraper.com', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'X-API-Key': 'YOUR_API_KEY',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    url: 'https://example.com',
    mode: 'auto',
    waitForSelector: '.main-content', // Wait for dynamic content
  }),
});

const { data } = await submitResponse.json();
console.log('Job submitted:', data.jobId);

// Step 2: Poll for the result
let job;
do {
  await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, 2000));

  const statusResponse = await fetch(
    'https://api.fastwebscraper.com/' + data.jobId,
    { headers: { 'X-API-Key': 'YOUR_API_KEY' } }
  );
  job = await statusResponse.json();

  console.log('Status:', job.data.status);
} while (job.data.status === 'PENDING' || job.data.status === 'IN_PROGRESS');

if (job.data.status === 'COMPLETED') {
  console.log('HTML length:', job.data.html.length);
} else {
  console.error('Job failed:', job.data.error);
}

Parsing HTML with cheerio

Once you have the HTML, use cheerio to extract structured data. cheerio provides a jQuery-like API for traversing and manipulating HTML.

import * as cheerio from 'cheerio';

// Assuming 'html' contains the scraped HTML string
const $ = cheerio.load(html);

// Extract text content
const pageTitle = $('h1').first().text().trim();
console.log('Page title:', pageTitle);

// Extract all links
const links = $('a[href]')
  .map((_, el) => ({
    text: $(el).text().trim(),
    href: $(el).attr('href'),
  }))
  .get();
console.log('Links found:', links.length);

// Extract product data (example)
const products = $('.product-card')
  .map((_, el) => ({
    name: $(el).find('.product-name').text().trim(),
    price: $(el).find('.product-price').text().trim(),
    url: $(el).find('a').attr('href'),
  }))
  .get();
console.log('Products:', products);

// Extract table data
const tableRows = $('table tbody tr')
  .map((_, row) => {
    return [
      $(row)
        .find('td')
        .map((_, cell) => $(cell).text().trim())
        .get(),
    ];
  })
  .get();
console.log('Table rows:', tableRows);

Complete Example: Scrape and Parse

Here's a complete script that scrapes a page and extracts structured data.

import * as cheerio from 'cheerio';

async function scrapeAndParse(url: string) {
  // Scrape the page
  const response = await fetch('https://api.fastwebscraper.com', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'X-API-Key': 'YOUR_API_KEY',
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      url,
      mode: 'auto',
      waitForSelector: '.product-card',
    }),
  });

  if (!response.ok) {
    const error = await response.json();
    throw new Error(error.error?.message ?? 'Scrape failed');
  }

  const result = await response.json();

  // Parse the HTML
  const $ = cheerio.load(result.data.html);

  const products = $('.product-card')
    .map((_, el) => ({
      name: $(el).find('.product-name').text().trim(),
      price: $(el).find('.price').text().trim(),
      image: $(el).find('img').attr('src'),
      link: $(el).find('a').attr('href'),
    }))
    .get();

  return { url, scrapedAt: new Date().toISOString(), products };
}

// Usage
const data = await scrapeAndParse('https://store.example.com/products');
console.log(JSON.stringify(data, null, 2));

Error Handling

Always handle errors and implement retries for production use.

async function scrapeWithRetry(url: string, retries = 3) {
  for (let attempt = 1; attempt <= retries; attempt++) {
    try {
      const response = await fetch('https://api.fastwebscraper.com', {
        method: 'POST',
        headers: {
          'X-API-Key': 'YOUR_API_KEY',
          'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        },
        body: JSON.stringify({ url, mode: 'auto' }),
        signal: AbortSignal.timeout(60_000), // 60s timeout
      });

      if (response.status === 429) {
        // Rate limited — wait and retry
        const delay = Math.pow(2, attempt) * 1000;
        console.warn('Rate limited. Waiting', delay, 'ms...');
        await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, delay));
        continue;
      }

      if (!response.ok) {
        throw new Error('HTTP ' + response.status);
      }

      return await response.json();
    } catch (error) {
      if (attempt === retries) throw error;
      const delay = Math.pow(2, attempt) * 1000;
      console.warn('Attempt', attempt, 'failed. Retrying in', delay, 'ms...');
      await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, delay));
    }
  }
}

Next Steps

API Reference — all endpoints, parameters, and response schemas
Async vs Sync Guide — when to use each scraping mode
Error Handling Guide — production-ready retry patterns
Use Cases — industry-specific scraping examples