Anakin CLI

Command-line interface for Anakin.io: scrape and crawl websites, run pre-built Wire actions on hundreds of sites, search, research, monitor pages for changes, and compare what AI engines say. Built on the official anakin-sdk.

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or higher
• An Anakin API key for most commands (get one free, 300 credits). scrape and wire discover also work without one.

Install

pip install anakin-cli

Quick Start

# No key needed: scrape a page, find a Wire action
anakin scrape "https://example.com"
anakin wire discover "top phones on walmart"

# Authenticate for everything else
anakin login --api-key "ak-your-key-here"
anakin status

# Wire: structured data from a known site
anakin wire catalog walmart
anakin wire run walmart_search -p query=phones -p limit=5

# Scrape, batch, map, crawl
anakin scrape "https://example.com/product" --format json -o product.json
anakin scrape-batch "https://a.com" "https://b.com" -o batch.json
anakin map "https://docs.example.com" --links-only
anakin crawl "https://docs.example.com" --max-pages 50 --include "/guides/*" -o site.json

# Search and deep research (1-5 minutes)
anakin search "python async best practices"
anakin research "comparison of vector databases" -o report.json

# Monitor a page; compare AI engine answers
anakin monitor create "https://example.com/pricing" --interval 60 --ai
anakin ai-visibility search "best web scraping api"

Every command prints JSON (or plain text for page content) to stdout, and progress to stderr, so piping works:

anakin wire run hn_stories -p limit=5 | jq '.[0].title'

Commands

Command	Description
scrape	Scrape one URL: markdown, html, AI-extracted JSON, links, summary or raw. --schema, --actions, --screenshot FILE. Works without a key.
scrape-batch	Scrape up to 10 URLs at once
map	Discover URLs on a site
crawl	Crawl a site and return each page's markdown
search	AI web search (instant)
research	Deep agentic research (1-5 min), optional --schema
job get <type> <id>	Fetch any async job (scrape, batch, map, crawl, research, wire, ai-visibility)
wire discover / catalogs / catalog	Find Wire actions (no key needed)
wire run <action_id>	Run an action: -p key=value, --params @file.json, --credential-id, --zero-touch
wire identities / login / download	Site accounts, sign-in (password prompted, never stored), file results
wire build / build-status	Request actions for a site not in the catalog
monitor create / list / pause / resume / run / changes / snapshots / deliveries / test-alert / delete	Website monitoring (page, site or Wire scope)
ai-visibility search / sources / list	Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overview the same question
webhooks list / create / delete / test / deliveries / events / secret	Webhook endpoints and delivery log
sessions list / delete	Saved browser login sessions
login / status	Save your key; show version, API URL and auth status

Run anakin <command> --help for every option.

Scrape Formats

--format	What you get
markdown (default)	Clean readable page text
json	AI-extracted structured data (add --schema to choose the fields)
html	Raw HTML
links	[{href, text}]
summary	AI summary of the page
raw	The full result object

--browser            # Headless browser (JS-heavy sites)
--country CC         # Proxy country (default: us)
--session-id ID      # Saved browser session (login-protected pages)
--actions JSON       # Click/scroll/type before capture
--screenshot FILE    # Also save a PNG
--fresh              # Skip the cache
--timeout SECS       # Max wait (default: 120)
-o, --output FILE    # Save output to a file

Self-Hosted Mode

Point the CLI at a self-hosted AnakinScraper instance (no API key needed):

anakin scrape "https://example.com" --api-url http://localhost:8080
# or
export ANAKIN_API_URL="http://localhost:8080"

Self-hosted mode supports scrape, scrape-batch, map and crawl. Search, research, Wire and AI visibility need the hosted API.

Authentication

Get a free API key (300 credits) at anakin.io/signup.

Option A — Login command (recommended):

anakin login --api-key "ak-your-key-here"

Option B — Environment variable:

export ANAKIN_API_KEY="ak-your-key-here"

Without a key, scrape and wire discover/catalogs/catalog use the free keyless tier. Other commands prompt for a key when run in a terminal.

Error Handling

Errors print a one-line reason plus a hint, and exit non-zero:

Error	Fix shown
401 invalid key	anakin login --api-key ...
402 out of credits / keyless tier unavailable	Top-up or signup link
Wire AUTH_REQUIRED	The URL to connect the site account
Wire AUTH_EXPIRED	Run anakin wire login again
429 rate limited	How long to wait
Job timed out	Raise --timeout, or anakin job get <type> <id> later

Exit codes: 0 success, 1 API/job error, 2 bad arguments or input files, 130 interrupted.

Tips

• Always quote URLs that contain ?, &, or # — shells like zsh interpret these as special characters:

  # Wrong — zsh will fail with "no matches found"
  anakin scrape https://example.com/page?id=123
  
  # Correct
  anakin scrape "https://example.com/page?id=123"

• Use --browser for JavaScript-heavy sites (SPAs, dynamic content).
• Use -o to save output to a file. Without it, output goes to stdout.
• All progress/status messages go to stderr, so piping works cleanly:

  anakin scrape "https://example.com" --format raw | jq '.links'

Documentation

• API Docs — full endpoint reference
• LLM-friendly docs — plain text docs optimized for AI/LLM consumption

Support

• Discord: discord.gg/gP2YCJKH
• Email: support@anakin.io

License

MIT