Starts an asynchronous crawl job on a website and extracts content from all pages. Best for: Extracting content from multiple related pages, when you need comprehensive coverage. Not recommended for: Extracting content from a single page (use scrape); when token limits are a concern (use map + ba...
AI agents call firecrawl_crawl to retrieve information from Firecrawl Web Scraping Server without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
url | string | — | Starting URL for the crawl |
limit | number | — | Maximum number of pages to crawl |
webhook | object | — | |
maxDepth | number | — | Maximum link depth to crawl |
excludePaths | array | — | URL paths to exclude from crawling |
includePaths | array | — | Only crawl these URL paths |
ignoreSitemap | boolean | — | Skip sitemap.xml discovery |
scrapeOptions | object | — | Options for scraping each page |
allowBackwardLinks | boolean | — | Allow crawling links that point to parent directories |
allowExternalLinks | boolean | — | Allow crawling links to external domains |
ignoreQueryParameters | boolean | — | Ignore query parameters when comparing URLs |
deduplicateSimilarURLs | boolean | — | Remove similar URLs during crawl |
Parameters from the server's own tool schema.
This tool retrieves and extracts content from web pages without modifying, deleting, or executing operations. While it performs network requests to crawl websites, it is fundamentally a read operation that gathers data. The warnings about token limits and crawl depth are operational concerns, not security concerns that would elevate it to Execute or other categories.
From the tool's definition Tool description states it 'Starts an asynchronous crawl job on a website and extracts content from all pages.' The verb 'extracts' and context of 'web scraping' server indicates data retrieval.
Risk signalsAccepts URL/endpoint input (url) · High parameter count (17 properties)
Documented attack patterns abuse exactly the kind of access firecrawl_crawl gives an agent:
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway — it sits between your AI agents and Firecrawl Web Scraping Server, and nothing reaches the server without passing your rules. This is the rule we recommend for firecrawl_crawl:
{
"version": "1",
"default": "deny",
"tools": {
"firecrawl_crawl": {}
}
}firecrawl_crawl is read-only, so it stays allowed — but everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
Free to start. No card required.
Starts an asynchronous crawl job on a website and extracts content from all pages. Best for: Extracting content from multiple related pages, when you need comprehensive coverage. Not recommended for: Extracting content from a single page (use scrape); when token limits are a concern (use map + batch_scrape); when you need fast results (crawling can be slow). Warning: Crawl responses can be very large and may exceed token limits. Limit the crawl depth and number of pages, or use map + batch_scrape for better control. Common mistakes: Setting limit or maxDepth too high (causes token overflow); using crawl for a single page (use scrape instead). Prompt Example: "Get all blog posts from the first two levels of example.com/blog." Usage Example: json { "name": "firecrawl_crawl", "arguments": { "url": "https://example.com/blog/*", "maxDepth": 2, "limit": 100, "allowExternalLinks": false, "deduplicateSimilarURLs": true } } Returns: Operation ID for status checking; use firecrawl_check_crawl_status to check progress. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Firecrawl Web Scraping Server MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
firecrawl_crawl accepts 12 parameters: url, limit, webhook, maxDepth, excludePaths, includePaths, ignoreSitemap, scrapeOptions, allowBackwardLinks, allowExternalLinks, ignoreQueryParameters, deduplicateSimilarURLs. The full parameter table on this page comes from the server's own tool schema.
Register the Firecrawl Web Scraping Server MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for firecrawl_crawl: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches Firecrawl Web Scraping Server. Nothing to install.
firecrawl_crawl is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the firecrawl_crawl rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for firecrawl_crawl. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
firecrawl_crawl is provided by the Firecrawl Web Scraping Server MCP server (0xzapata/firecrawl-mcp-server). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Start from Firecrawl Web Scraping Server, add the rest of your stack, and see everything your agents can call. Then put policy on all of it.
Free to start. No card required.
8 Firecrawl Web Scraping Server tools catalogued and risk-classified — across an index of 43,000+ MCP servers.