Tavily Crawl

tavily crawl

Crawl a website and extract content from multiple pages. Supports saving each page as a local markdown file.

Before running any command

If tvly is not found on PATH, install it first:

curl -fsSL https://cli.tavily.com/install.sh | bash && tvly login

Do not skip this step or fall back to other tools.

See tavily-cli for alternative install methods and auth options.

When to use

• You need content from many pages on a site (e.g., all /docs/)
• You want to download documentation for offline use
• Step 4 in the workflow: search → extract → map → crawl → research

Quick start

# Basic crawl
tvly crawl "https://docs.example.com" --json

# Save each page as a markdown file
tvly crawl "https://docs.example.com" --output-dir ./docs/

# Deeper crawl with limits
tvly crawl "https://docs.example.com" --max-depth 2 --limit 50 --json

# Filter to specific paths
tvly crawl "https://example.com" --select-paths "/api/.*,/guides/.*" --exclude-paths "/blog/.*" --json

# Semantic focus (returns relevant chunks, not full pages)
tvly crawl "https://docs.example.com" --instructions "Find authentication docs" --chunks-per-source 3 --json

Options

| Option | Description |

|--------|-------------|

| --max-depth | Levels deep (1-5, default: 1) |

| --max-breadth | Links per page (default: 20) |

| --limit | Total pages cap (default: 50) |

| --instructions | Natural language guidance for semantic focus |

| --chunks-per-source | Chunks per page (1-5, requires --instructions) |

| --extract-depth | basic (default) or advanced |

| --format | markdown (default) or text |

| --select-paths | Comma-separated regex patterns to include |

| --exclude-paths | Comma-separated regex patterns to exclude |

| --select-domains | Comma-separated regex for domains to include |

| --exclude-domains | Comma-separated regex for domains to exclude |

| --allow-external / --no-external | Include external links (default: allow) |

| --include-images | Include images |

| --timeout | Max wait (10-150 seconds) |

| -o, --output | Save JSON output to file |

| --output-dir | Save each page as a .md file in directory |

| --json | Structured JSON output |

Crawl for context vs. data collection

For agentic use (feeding results to an LLM):

Always use --instructions + --chunks-per-source. Returns only relevant chunks instead of full pages — prevents context explosion.

tvly crawl "https://docs.example.com" --instructions "API authentication" --chunks-per-source 3 --json

For data collection (saving to files):

Use --output-dir without --chunks-per-source to get full pages as markdown files.

tvly crawl "https://docs.example.com" --max-depth 2 --output-dir ./docs/

Tips

• Start conservative — --max-depth 1, --limit 20 — and scale up.
• Use --select-paths to focus on the section you need.
• Use map first to understand site structure before a full crawl.
• Always set --limit to prevent runaway crawls.

See also

• tavily-map — discover URLs before deciding to crawl
• tavily-extract — extract individual pages
• tavily-search — find pages when you don't have a URL