firecrawl_agent
Autonomously browses the web to find and extract structured data from multiple sources based on your natural language query, handling complex research tasks across the internet.
Instructions
Autonomous web research agent. This is a separate AI agent layer that independently browses the internet, searches for information, navigates through pages, and extracts structured data based on your query. You describe what you need, and the agent figures out where to find it.
How it works: The agent performs web searches, follows links, reads pages, and gathers data autonomously. This runs asynchronously - it returns a job ID immediately, and you poll firecrawl_agent_status to check when complete and retrieve results.
IMPORTANT - Async workflow with patient polling:
Call
firecrawl_agentwith your prompt/schema → returns job ID immediatelyPoll
firecrawl_agent_statuswith the job ID to check progressKeep polling for at least 2-3 minutes - agent research typically takes 1-5 minutes for complex queries
Poll every 15-30 seconds until status is "completed" or "failed"
Do NOT give up after just a few polling attempts - the agent needs time to research
Expected wait times:
Simple queries with provided URLs: 30 seconds - 1 minute
Complex research across multiple sites: 2-5 minutes
Deep research tasks: 5+ minutes
Best for: Complex research tasks where you don't know the exact URLs; multi-source data gathering; finding information scattered across the web; extracting data from JavaScript-heavy SPAs that fail with regular scrape. Not recommended for: Simple single-page scraping where you know the URL (use scrape with JSON format instead - faster and cheaper).
Arguments:
prompt: Natural language description of the data you want (required, max 10,000 characters)
urls: Optional array of URLs to focus the agent on specific pages
schema: Optional JSON schema for structured output
Prompt Example: "Find the founders of Firecrawl and their backgrounds" Usage Example (start agent, then poll patiently for results):
{
"name": "firecrawl_agent",
"arguments": {
"prompt": "Find the top 5 AI startups founded in 2024 and their funding amounts",
"schema": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"startups": {
"type": "array",
"items": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"name": { "type": "string" },
"funding": { "type": "string" },
"founded": { "type": "string" }
}
}
}
}
}
}
}Then poll with firecrawl_agent_status every 15-30 seconds for at least 2-3 minutes.
Usage Example (with URLs - agent focuses on specific pages):
{
"name": "firecrawl_agent",
"arguments": {
"urls": ["https://docs.firecrawl.dev", "https://firecrawl.dev/pricing"],
"prompt": "Compare the features and pricing information from these pages"
}
}Returns: Job ID for status checking. Use firecrawl_agent_status to poll for results.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| prompt | Yes | ||
| urls | No | ||
| schema | No |