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PyScrappy: Python web scraping toolkit + MCP server for AI agents

Python 3.9+ PyPI Latest Release License: MIT Downloads Glama quality Documentation

PyScrappy is an AI-native web scraping toolkit that turns websites into structured, LLM-ready data. Use it as a Python library or expose it as an MCP server for AI agents.

📖 Documentation: pyscrappy.vercel.app

Key features

  • Generic scraper — give it any URL, get back structured text, links, images, tables, and metadata
  • LLM-ready output.to_markdown() turns any result into clean Markdown; also .to_json() and .to_dataframe()
  • MCP server — expose the scrapers as tools for AI agents (Claude, Cursor, local LLMs, …)
  • JS rendering — optional Playwright backend for JavaScript-heavy sites
  • Custom selectors — pass CSS selectors to extract exactly what you need
  • Concurrent scrapingscrape_many / scrape_all run scrapes in parallel
  • Proxy & scraping-API support — route through a proxy or ScraperAPI/ScrapeOps for blocked sites
  • Retry & rate-limiting — built-in exponential backoff and per-domain rate limiting
  • Type-safe — full type hints, py.typed marker
  • 20+ built-in scrapers — Wikipedia, IMDB, stocks, news, GitHub, Amazon/IKEA, YouTube, and more

Installation

pip install pyscrappy

Optional extras:

# Browser support (for JS-rendered pages)
pip install 'pyscrappy[browser]'
playwright install chromium

# DataFrame support
pip install 'pyscrappy[dataframe]'

# MCP server (use PyScrappy's scrapers as AI-agent tools)
pip install 'pyscrappy[mcp]'

# Everything
pip install 'pyscrappy[all]'

For AI agents

PyScrappy ships an MCP server that exposes its scrapers as tools, so an agent (Claude, Cursor, an OpenAI agent, a local LLM) can pull structured web data from any URL and hand it straight to the model:

AI agent  ──MCP tool call──▶  PyScrappy  ──fetch + extract──▶  Any website
   ▲                                                                │
   └──────────────  clean Markdown / JSON  ◀───────────────────────┘
pip install 'pyscrappy[mcp]'
claude mcp add pyscrappy pyscrappy-mcp

Then just ask: "use pyscrappy to summarize the latest headlines from bbc.com." See MCP server for the full setup and tool list.

Local models (Ollama), no MCP host needed

Ollama can't talk MCP on its own, so normally you'd run a host (Goose, Cline, …) in between. PyScrappy skips that with a built-in agent that talks to Ollama directly and lets a local model call the scrapers as tools:

pip install 'pyscrappy[mcp]'                 # needs Python 3.10+
pyscrappy chat --model qwen2.5 "what's the current AAPL quote?"

It exposes the same 22 tools as the MCP server. The only requirement is a model that supports tool calling (Llama 3.1, Qwen 2.5, Mistral, …); how well it picks the right tool is up to the model. Point it at a remote Ollama with --host, and pass -v to see each tool call.

MCP server (use PyScrappy from an AI agent)

PyScrappy ships an optional Model Context Protocol server, so an AI agent (e.g. Claude) can call PyScrappy's scrapers as tools and get structured web data back.

PyScrappy MCP server
pip install 'pyscrappy[mcp]'

The MCP extra installs the standalone fastmcp package and requires Python 3.10 or newer. On Python 3.9 the core scraping library still works, but the MCP server is unavailable.

This installs the pyscrappy-mcp command. It uses stdio by default for local MCP clients; Streamable HTTP and legacy SSE are available for remote deployments:

pyscrappy-mcp          # stdio (default)
pyscrappy-mcp --http   # Streamable HTTP
pyscrappy-mcp --sse    # legacy SSE

You can also run the stdio server with python -m pyscrappy.mcp.

Register with Claude Code

claude mcp add pyscrappy pyscrappy-mcp

Register with Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json and restart the app:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pyscrappy": {
      "command": "pyscrappy-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Tip: Claude Desktop does not inherit your shell PATH. If pyscrappy-mcp is not found, use the absolute path to the command (e.g. the one printed by which pyscrappy-mcp).

Available tools

Tool Description
scrape_url Scrape any URL — text, links, images, tables, metadata
scrape_wikipedia Fetch a Wikipedia article (full / paragraphs / headers)
scrape_stock Yahoo Finance quotes, history, and profiles
scrape_news RSS/Atom feeds, auto-discovered site feeds, or a single article
search_images Image search (returns URLs + metadata)
search_youtube YouTube video search
search_linkedin_jobs Public LinkedIn job listings
search_github GitHub repository search (stars, language, …)
search_hackernews Hacker News story search (points, comments)
search_books Book search via Open Library (title, author, year)
get_weather Current weather for a place (no key)
get_crypto Cryptocurrency prices and market data (CoinGecko)
convert_currency Exchange rates and currency conversion
define_word Word definitions and examples
search_amazon Amazon product search
search_newegg Newegg electronics / computer hardware search
search_ikea IKEA furniture / home search
search_soundcloud SoundCloud track search (uses the browser backend)
lookup_movie Movie/TV info from IMDB by title or id (via OMDb; needs OMDB_API_KEY)
scrape_zomato Restaurant listings by city
search_ubereats Uber Eats restaurants by city
get_ubereats_menu An Uber Eats restaurant's full menu (from its store URL)

The lookup_movie tool needs a free OMDb API key. Pass it to the server through your MCP client config, e.g. for Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pyscrappy": {
      "command": "pyscrappy-mcp",
      "env": { "OMDB_API_KEY": "your-key" }
    }
  }
}

Once registered, just ask the agent naturally, e.g. "use pyscrappy to get the latest headlines from bbc.co.uk and the AAPL stock quote."

Built-in scrapers

Every scraper that works without a proxy is also exposed as an MCP tool (last column).

Scraper What it does Browser? MCP tool
GenericScraper Scrape any URL with auto-extraction Optional scrape_url
Data / Research
WikipediaScraper Articles, sections, infoboxes No scrape_wikipedia
IMDBScraper Movie/TV info by title or id (via OMDb API; needs OMDB_API_KEY) No lookup_movie
StockScraper Quotes, history, profiles (Yahoo Finance) No scrape_stock
NewsScraper RSS/Atom feeds, article extraction No scrape_news
ImageSearchScraper Image search + download No search_images
LinkedInJobsScraper Public job listings No search_linkedin_jobs
GitHubScraper Repository search (stars, language, …) via GitHub API No search_github
HackerNewsScraper Story search (points, comments) via HN API No search_hackernews
OpenLibraryScraper Book search (title, author, year) via Open Library No search_books
WeatherScraper Current weather by place, via Open-Meteo (no key) No get_weather
CryptoScraper Crypto prices / market cap via CoinGecko (no key) No get_crypto
CurrencyScraper Currency exchange rates + conversion (no key) No convert_currency
DictionaryScraper Word definitions, examples (Free Dictionary API) No define_word
E-Commerce
AmazonScraper Product search No search_amazon
NeweggScraper Electronics / computer hardware search No search_newegg
IKEAScraper Furniture / home search, per-country prices (JSON API) No search_ikea
Social Media
YouTubeScraper Video search, channel scraping Optional search_youtube
InstagramScraper Profiles, hashtag posts (blocked; needs proxy) Recommended
TwitterScraper Tweet search (blocked; needs proxy) Recommended
Music
SpotifyScraper Track/playlist search (blocked; needs proxy) Recommended
SoundCloudScraper Track search Optional search_soundcloud
Food Delivery
ZomatoScraper Restaurant listings by city Recommended scrape_zomato
UberEatsScraper Restaurants by city + full menus (any Uber Eats country) No search_ubereats, get_ubereats_menu

Plugins

PyScrappy is extensible: you can add your own scrapers, and third parties can ship them as standalone pyscrappy-<name> packages. A registered scraper works everywhere a built-in does, including the MCP server and the pyscrappy chat agent, with no change to PyScrappy core.

In your own code — register with the decorator:

from pyscrappy import BaseScraper, register_scraper, get_scraper
from pyscrappy.core.models import ScrapeResult, ScrapeMetadata

@register_scraper("reddit")
class RedditScraper(BaseScraper):
    def scrape(self, subreddit: str, **kwargs) -> ScrapeResult:
        data = self.fetch_and_parse(f"https://old.reddit.com/r/{subreddit}/.json")
        # ... build a list of dicts ...
        return ScrapeResult(data=[...], metadata=ScrapeMetadata(scraper="reddit"))

get_scraper("reddit")().scrape(subreddit="python")

As a distributable package — advertise an entry point in your pyproject.toml, and PyScrappy discovers it once your package is installed:

[project.entry-points."pyscrappy.scrapers"]
reddit = "pyscrappy_reddit:RedditScraper"

After pip install pyscrappy-reddit, the scraper shows up in list_scrapers(), and an AI agent can call it via the scrape_with MCP tool — no core change required.

First-class MCP tools (optional). Add an mcp_tools mapping and your scraper becomes a dedicated, typed MCP tool instead of only being reachable through the generic scrape_with — its schema is derived from the method signature, so agents get proper named arguments:

@register_scraper("reddit")
class RedditScraper(BaseScraper):
    mcp_tools = {"search_reddit": "scrape"}   # tool name -> method

    def scrape(self, subreddit: str, sort: str = "hot") -> ScrapeResult:
        ...

See the plugin template for a complete, copyable starting point, and the plugin guide for the full walkthrough.

Quick start

Scrape any URL → clean, LLM-ready Markdown

from pyscrappy import scrape

result = scrape("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping")

print(result.to_markdown())   # feed straight to an LLM
# ...or result.to_json() / result.to_dataframe()

Prefer raw fields? Every result is a ScrapeResult with .data (a list of dicts):

print(result.data[0]["metadata"]["title"])
print(result.data[0]["text"]["word_count"])

Custom CSS selectors

from pyscrappy import GenericScraper

with GenericScraper() as gs:
    result = gs.scrape(
        url="https://news.ycombinator.com",
        selectors={"title": ".titleline a", "score": ".score"},
    )
    for item in result.data:
        print(item["title"], item.get("score", ""))

Site-specific scrapers

Every built-in scraper follows the same pattern — instantiate, scrape(...), read result.data (or .to_dataframe() / .to_markdown()):

from pyscrappy import WikipediaScraper

with WikipediaScraper() as ws:
    result = ws.scrape(query="Python (programming language)", mode="summary")
    print(result.data[0]["text"])

Each scraper has its own arguments (Wikipedia, stocks, IMDB, news, YouTube, Amazon/Newegg/IKEA, Uber Eats, and more — see the full list). For per-scraper arguments and examples, see the documentation.

Configuration

from pyscrappy import ScraperConfig, GenericScraper

config = ScraperConfig(
    timeout=20.0,            # request timeout in seconds
    max_retries=3,           # retry failed requests
    rate_limit=2.0,          # seconds between requests per domain
    proxy="http://...",      # proxy URL, or a list to rotate through
    scraper_api=None,        # route via a scraping-API service (see below)
    headless=True,           # browser runs headless
    render_js="auto",        # auto-detect if JS rendering is needed
    cache_ttl=0,             # response cache TTL in seconds (0 = disabled)
)

with GenericScraper(config) as gs:
    result = gs.scrape(url="https://example.com")

Proxies and blocked sites

Some sites (e.g. eBay, Instagram, Twitter/X, Spotify) block direct automated requests. PyScrappy supports two ways to get through them.

A proxy (or a rotating list) — applies to both the HTTP and browser backends:

from pyscrappy import ScraperConfig, AmazonScraper

# Single proxy
config = ScraperConfig(proxy="http://user:pass@host:port")

# Rotating list (one picked per request)
config = ScraperConfig(proxy=["http://p1:8080", "http://p2:8080"])

A scraping-API service (ScraperAPI, ScrapeOps, ScrapingBee) — routes requests through the service, which handles proxies and anti-bot challenges for you:

config = ScraperConfig(scraper_api={
    "provider": "scraperapi",   # or "scrapeops", "scrapingbee"
    "api_key": "YOUR_KEY",
    "render_js": True,           # optional
})

# Now any scraper works through the service, unchanged:
with AmazonScraper(config) as scraper:
    result = scraper.scrape(query="laptop")

This is the reliable way to use the scrapers marked "needs proxy" above.

Concurrent scraping

Scraping is I/O-bound, so running several scrapes at once parallelizes the network waits. scrape_many runs one scraper over many inputs; scrape_all runs a mix of scrapers together. Both preserve input order.

from pyscrappy import scrape_many, scrape_all, AmazonScraper, WikipediaScraper, NewsScraper

# One scraper, many queries, concurrently:
results = scrape_many(AmazonScraper, [{"query": "laptop"}, {"query": "phone"}])

# Different scrapers at once:
results = scrape_all([
    lambda: WikipediaScraper().scrape(query="Python"),
    lambda: NewsScraper().scrape(feed_url="https://rss.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/World.xml"),
])

Response caching

Set cache_ttl to a positive number of seconds to cache successful GET responses. Repeated requests for the same URL (and query params) within the TTL are served from cache, skipping both the network and the rate limiter. Caching is disabled by default (cache_ttl=0).

from pyscrappy import WikipediaScraper
from pyscrappy import ScraperConfig

config = ScraperConfig(cache_ttl=300)   # cache for 5 minutes

with WikipediaScraper(config) as ws:
    ws.scrape(query="Python")   # fetched over the network
    ws.scrape(query="Python")   # served from cache

The cache is in memory and shared across scraper instances in the same process (so it also speeds up repeated calls through the MCP server), and is cleared when the process exits. Call HttpClient.clear_cache() to empty it manually.

Dependencies

Required: httpx, beautifulsoup4, lxml

Optional: playwright (JS rendering), pandas (DataFrames), fastmcp (MCP server, Python 3.10+)

License

MIT

Contributing

All contributions welcome. See Issues.

This package is for educational and research purposes.

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Python web scraping toolkit and MCP server that gives AI agents clean, structured web data from any URL or built-in scrapers.

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