Reader

Open source web infrastructure for AI.

Access the web without the complexity.

The Problem

Building agents that need web access is frustrating. You piece together Puppeteer, add stealth plugins, fight Cloudflare, manage proxies and it still breaks in production.

Because production grade web scraping isn't about rendering a page and converting HTML to markdown. It's about everything underneath:

Layer	What it actually takes
Browser architecture	Managing browser instances at scale, not one-off scripts
Anti-bot bypass	Cloudflare, Turnstile, JS challenges, they all block naive scrapers
TLS fingerprinting	Real browsers have fingerprints. Puppeteer doesn't. Sites know.
Proxy infrastructure	Datacenter vs residential, rotation strategies, sticky sessions
Resource management	Browser pooling, memory limits, graceful recycling
Reliability	Rate limiting, retries, timeouts, caching, graceful degradation

I built Reader, a production-grade web scraping engine on top of Ulixee Hero, a headless browser designed for exactly this.

The Solution

Three primitives. That's it.

import { ReaderClient } from "@vakra-dev/reader";
import { chromium } from "playwright-core";

const reader = new ReaderClient();

// 1. Scrape URLs → clean markdown
const result = await reader.scrape({ urls: ["https://example.com"] });
console.log(result.data[0].markdown);

// 2. Crawl a site → discover + scrape pages
const pages = await reader.crawl({
  url: "https://example.com",
  depth: 2,
  scrape: true,
});
console.log(`Found ${pages.urls.length} pages`);

// 3. Browser session → full Playwright/Puppeteer control with stealth
const session = await reader.browser();
const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(session.wsEndpoint);
const page = browser.contexts()[0].pages()[0];
await page.goto("https://example.com");
console.log(await page.title());
await session.close();

All the hard stuff (browser pooling, anti-bot bypass, proxy rotation, retries) happens under the hood. You get clean markdown. Your agents get the web. And when you need full browser control, browser() gives you a stealthed Chrome that Playwright or Puppeteer can drive.

Tip

If Reader is useful to you, a star on GitHub helps others discover the project.

Features

Browser Sessions - Launch stealthed Chrome, connect Playwright/Puppeteer via CDP
Anti-Bot Bypass - TLS fingerprinting, navigator spoofing, WebRTC masking, webdriver=false
Clean Output - Markdown and HTML with automatic main content extraction
Smart Content Cleaning - Removes nav, headers, footers, popups, cookie banners
CLI & API - Use from command line or programmatically
Browser Pool - Auto-recycling, health monitoring, tiered proxy pools
Concurrent Scraping - Parallel URL processing with progress tracking
Website Crawling - BFS link discovery with depth/page limits
Tiered Proxies - Datacenter and residential pools with auto-escalation and health tracking

Installation

npm install @vakra-dev/reader

Requirements: Node.js >= 18

Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3): Hero's bundled Chrome binary isn't available for arm64. Point to your system Chrome:
export CHROME_139_BIN="/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome"

Quick Start

Cloud (Fastest)

Get an API key at app.reader.dev and start scraping immediately:

import { ReaderClient } from "@vakra-dev/reader-js";

const reader = new ReaderClient({ apiKey: process.env.READER_API_KEY });

const result = await reader.read({ url: "https://example.com" });
if (result.kind === "scrape") {
  console.log(result.data.markdown);
}

npm install @vakra-dev/reader-js

See the cloud docs for the full API reference.

Self-Hosted

Install the reader engine and run scraping on your own infrastructure:

Basic Scrape

import { ReaderClient } from "@vakra-dev/reader";

const reader = new ReaderClient();

const result = await reader.scrape({
  urls: ["https://example.com"],
  formats: ["markdown", "html"],
});

console.log(result.data[0].markdown);
console.log(result.data[0].html);

await reader.close();

Batch Scraping with Concurrency

import { ReaderClient } from "@vakra-dev/reader";

const reader = new ReaderClient();

const result = await reader.scrape({
  urls: ["https://example.com", "https://example.org", "https://example.net"],
  formats: ["markdown"],
  batchConcurrency: 3,
  onProgress: (progress) => {
    console.log(`${progress.completed}/${progress.total}: ${progress.currentUrl}`);
  },
});

console.log(`Scraped ${result.batchMetadata.successfulUrls} URLs`);

await reader.close();

Crawling

import { ReaderClient } from "@vakra-dev/reader";

const reader = new ReaderClient();

const result = await reader.crawl({
  url: "https://example.com",
  depth: 2,
  maxPages: 20,
  scrape: true,
});

console.log(`Discovered ${result.urls.length} URLs`);
console.log(`Scraped ${result.scraped?.batchMetadata.successfulUrls} pages`);

await reader.close();

Browser Session

Launch a stealthed Chrome and control it with Playwright or Puppeteer. The browser has anti-bot stealth active (webdriver=false, navigator spoofing, WebRTC masking). Your existing scripts just work.

import { ReaderClient } from "@vakra-dev/reader";
import { chromium } from "playwright-core";

const reader = new ReaderClient();

// Create a browser session - returns a CDP WebSocket URL
const session = await reader.browser();

// Connect Playwright (one-line change from a local script)
const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(session.wsEndpoint);
const context = await browser.newContext();
const page = await context.newPage();

// Use Playwright normally - full stealth active
await page.goto("https://news.ycombinator.com/");
console.log(await page.title());

await browser.close();
await session.close();
await reader.close();

Also works with Puppeteer:

import { connect } from "puppeteer-core";

const browser = await connect({ browserWSEndpoint: session.wsEndpoint });

With Proxy

import { ReaderClient } from "@vakra-dev/reader";

const reader = new ReaderClient();

const result = await reader.scrape({
  urls: ["https://example.com"],
  formats: ["markdown"],
  proxy: {
    type: "residential",
    host: "proxy.example.com",
    port: 8080,
    username: "username",
    password: "password",
    country: "us",
  },
});

await reader.close();

With Tiered Proxy Pools

Configure datacenter (fast, cheap) and residential (anti-bot) proxy tiers. Reader auto-escalates from datacenter to residential when sites block:

import { ReaderClient } from "@vakra-dev/reader";

const reader = new ReaderClient({
  proxyPools: {
    datacenter: [
      { url: "http://user:pass@dc-proxy1:8080" },
      { url: "http://user:pass@dc-proxy2:8080" },
    ],
    residential: [{ url: "http://user:pass@res-proxy1:8080" }],
  },
});

const result = await reader.scrape({
  urls: ["https://example.com"],
  proxyTier: "auto", // datacenter first, escalate to residential on block
});

await reader.close();

Or via environment variables:

PROXY_DATACENTER=http://user:pass@dc1:8080,http://user:pass@dc2:8080
PROXY_RESIDENTIAL=http://user:pass@res1:8080

With Browser Pool Configuration

import { ReaderClient } from "@vakra-dev/reader";

const reader = new ReaderClient({
  browserPool: {
    size: 5, // 5 browser instances
    retireAfterPages: 50, // Recycle after 50 pages
    retireAfterMinutes: 15, // Recycle after 15 minutes
  },
  verbose: true,
});

const result = await reader.scrape({
  urls: manyUrls,
  batchConcurrency: 5,
});

await reader.close();

CLI Reference

Daemon Mode

For multiple requests, start a daemon to keep browser pool warm:

# Start daemon with browser pool
npx reader start --direct-pool-size 5

# All subsequent commands auto-connect to daemon
npx reader scrape https://example.com
npx reader crawl https://example.com -d 2

# Check daemon status
npx reader status

# Stop daemon
npx reader stop

# Force standalone mode (bypass daemon)
npx reader scrape https://example.com --standalone

`reader scrape <urls...>`

Scrape one or more URLs.

# Scrape a single URL
npx reader scrape https://example.com

# Scrape with multiple formats
npx reader scrape https://example.com -f markdown,html

# Scrape multiple URLs concurrently
npx reader scrape https://example.com https://example.org -c 2

# Save to file
npx reader scrape https://example.com -o output.md

Option	Type	Default	Description
`-f, --format <formats>`	string	`"markdown"`	Output formats (comma-separated: markdown,html)
`-o, --output <file>`	string	stdout	Output file path
`-c, --concurrency <n>`	number	`1`	Parallel requests
`-t, --timeout <ms>`	number	`30000`	Request timeout in milliseconds
`--batch-timeout <ms>`	number	`300000`	Total timeout for entire batch operation
`--proxy <url>`	string	-	Proxy URL (e.g., http://user:pass@host:port)
`--user-agent <string>`	string	-	Custom user agent string
`--show-chrome`	flag	-	Show browser window for debugging
`--no-main-content`	flag	-	Disable main content extraction (include full page)
`--include-tags <sel>`	string	-	CSS selectors for elements to include (comma-separated)
`--exclude-tags <sel>`	string	-	CSS selectors for elements to exclude (comma-separated)
`-v, --verbose`	flag	-	Enable verbose logging

`reader crawl <url>`

Crawl a website to discover pages.

# Crawl with default settings
npx reader crawl https://example.com

# Crawl deeper with more pages
npx reader crawl https://example.com -d 3 -m 50

# Crawl and scrape content
npx reader crawl https://example.com -d 2 --scrape

# Filter URLs with patterns
npx reader crawl https://example.com --include "blog/*" --exclude "admin/*"

Option	Type	Default	Description
`-d, --depth <n>`	number	`1`	Maximum crawl depth
`-m, --max-pages <n>`	number	`20`	Maximum pages to discover
`-s, --scrape`	flag	-	Also scrape content of discovered pages
`-f, --format <formats>`	string	`"markdown"`	Output formats when scraping (comma-separated)
`-o, --output <file>`	string	stdout	Output file path
`--delay <ms>`	number	`1000`	Delay between requests in milliseconds
`-t, --timeout <ms>`	number	-	Total timeout for crawl operation
`--include <patterns>`	string	-	URL patterns to include (comma-separated regex)
`--exclude <patterns>`	string	-	URL patterns to exclude (comma-separated regex)
`--proxy <url>`	string	-	Proxy URL (e.g., http://user:pass@host:port)
`--user-agent <string>`	string	-	Custom user agent string
`--show-chrome`	flag	-	Show browser window for debugging
`-v, --verbose`	flag	-	Enable verbose logging

`reader browser`

Launch a browser session with a CDP WebSocket endpoint.

# Create a session (prints wsEndpoint, blocks until Ctrl+C)
npx reader browser create

# Create with options
npx reader browser create --timeout 60000 --show-chrome

# List active sessions (daemon mode)
npx reader browser list

# Stop a session
npx reader browser stop <sessionId>

Option	Type	Default	Description
`--proxy <url>`	string	-	Proxy URL
`-t, --timeout <ms>`	number	`300000`	Session lifetime in milliseconds
`--show-chrome`	flag	-	Show browser window
`--standalone`	flag	-	Force standalone mode
`-v, --verbose`	flag	-	Enable verbose logging

API Reference

`ReaderClient`

The recommended way to use Reader. Manages HeroCore lifecycle automatically.

import { ReaderClient } from "@vakra-dev/reader";

const reader = new ReaderClient({ verbose: true });

// Scrape
const result = await reader.scrape({ urls: ["https://example.com"] });

// Crawl
const crawlResult = await reader.crawl({ url: "https://example.com", depth: 2 });

// Browser session
const session = await reader.browser();
// → session.wsEndpoint for Playwright/Puppeteer

// Close when done (optional - auto-closes on exit)
await reader.close();

Constructor Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
`verbose`	`boolean`	`false`	Enable verbose logging
`showChrome`	`boolean`	`false`	Show browser window for debugging
`browserPool`	`BrowserPoolConfig`	`undefined`	Browser pool configuration (size, recycling)
`proxyPools`	`ProxyPoolConfig`	`undefined`	Tiered proxy pools (datacenter + residential)
`proxies`	`ProxyConfig[]`	`undefined`	Array of proxies for rotation (legacy)
`proxyRotation`	`string`	`"round-robin"`	Rotation strategy: `"round-robin"` or `"random"`

BrowserPoolConfig

Option	Type	Default	Description
`size`	`number`	`2`	Number of browser instances in pool
`retireAfterPages`	`number`	`100`	Recycle browser after N page loads
`retireAfterMinutes`	`number`	`30`	Recycle browser after N minutes
`maxQueueSize`	`number`	`100`	Max pending requests in queue

Methods

Method	Description
`scrape(options)`	Scrape one or more URLs
`crawl(options)`	Crawl a website to discover pages
`browser(options?)`	Launch a stealthed browser session (CDP WebSocket)
`start()`	Pre-initialize HeroCore (optional)
`isReady()`	Check if client is initialized
`close()`	Close client and release resources

`scrape(options): Promise<ScrapeResult>`

Scrape one or more URLs. Can be used directly or via ReaderClient.

Option	Type	Required	Default	Description
`urls`	`string[]`	Yes	-	Array of URLs to scrape
`formats`	`Array<"markdown" \| "html">`	No	`["markdown"]`	Output formats
`onlyMainContent`	`boolean`	No	`true`	Extract only main content (removes nav/header/footer)
`includeTags`	`string[]`	No	`[]`	CSS selectors for elements to keep
`excludeTags`	`string[]`	No	`[]`	CSS selectors for elements to remove
`waitForSelector`	`string`	No	-	CSS selector to wait for before page is loaded
`timeoutMs`	`number`	No	`30000`	Request timeout in milliseconds
`batchConcurrency`	`number`	No	`1`	Number of URLs to process in parallel
`batchTimeoutMs`	`number`	No	`300000`	Total timeout for entire batch operation
`proxy`	`ProxyConfig`	No	-	Proxy configuration object
`proxyTier`	`ProxyTier`	No	-	Proxy tier: `"datacenter"`, `"residential"`, `"auto"`
`onProgress`	`function`	No	-	Progress callback: `({ completed, total, currentUrl }) => void`
`verbose`	`boolean`	No	`false`	Enable verbose logging
`showChrome`	`boolean`	No	`false`	Show Chrome window for debugging

Returns: Promise<ScrapeResult>

interface ScrapeResult {
  data: WebsiteScrapeResult[];
  batchMetadata: BatchMetadata;
}

interface WebsiteScrapeResult {
  markdown?: string;
  html?: string;
  metadata: {
    baseUrl: string;
    finalUrl?: string; // Present if URL redirected
    totalPages: number;
    scrapedAt: string;
    duration: number;
    website: WebsiteMetadata;
  };
}

interface BatchMetadata {
  totalUrls: number;
  successfulUrls: number;
  failedUrls: number;
  scrapedAt: string;
  totalDuration: number;
  errors?: Array<{ url: string; error: string }>;
}

`crawl(options): Promise<CrawlResult>`

Crawl a website to discover pages.

Option	Type	Required	Default	Description
`url`	`string`	Yes	-	Single seed URL to start crawling from
`depth`	`number`	No	`1`	Maximum depth to crawl
`maxPages`	`number`	No	`20`	Maximum pages to discover
`scrape`	`boolean`	No	`false`	Also scrape full content of discovered pages
`delayMs`	`number`	No	`1000`	Delay between requests in milliseconds
`timeoutMs`	`number`	No	-	Total timeout for entire crawl operation
`includePatterns`	`string[]`	No	-	URL patterns to include (regex strings)
`excludePatterns`	`string[]`	No	-	URL patterns to exclude (regex strings)
`formats`	`Array<"markdown" \| "html">`	No	`["markdown"]`	Output formats for scraped content
`scrapeConcurrency`	`number`	No	`2`	Number of URLs to scrape in parallel
`proxy`	`ProxyConfig`	No	-	Proxy configuration object
`userAgent`	`string`	No	-	Custom user agent string
`verbose`	`boolean`	No	`false`	Enable verbose logging
`showChrome`	`boolean`	No	`false`	Show Chrome window for debugging
`connectionToCore`	`any`	No	-	Connection to shared Hero Core (for production)

Returns: Promise<CrawlResult>

interface CrawlResult {
  urls: CrawlUrl[];
  scraped?: ScrapeResult;
  metadata: CrawlMetadata;
}

interface CrawlUrl {
  url: string;
  title: string;
  description: string | null;
}

interface CrawlMetadata {
  totalUrls: number;
  maxDepth: number;
  totalDuration: number;
  seedUrl: string;
}

`browser(options?): Promise<BrowserSession>`

Launch a stealthed Chrome and return a CDP WebSocket URL for Playwright/Puppeteer.

Option	Type	Required	Default	Description
`proxy`	`ProxyConfig`	No	-	Proxy configuration
`proxyTier`	`ProxyTier`	No	-	Proxy tier: `"datacenter"`, `"residential"`, `"auto"`
`showChrome`	`boolean`	No	`false`	Show browser window
`timeoutMs`	`number`	No	`300000`	Session lifetime (auto-closes after)
`verbose`	`boolean`	No	`false`	Enable verbose logging

Returns: Promise<BrowserSession>

interface BrowserSession {
  sessionId: string; // Unique session identifier
  wsEndpoint: string; // CDP WebSocket URL for Playwright/Puppeteer
  createdAt: string; // ISO timestamp
  close(): Promise<void>; // Close session and release resources
}

Stealth features active on all sessions:

navigator.webdriver = false (via --disable-blink-features=AutomationControlled)
Proxy routing through authenticated proxy forwarder (if configured)
Isolated user profile per session (no cookie/state leaks)

ProxyConfig

Option	Type	Required	Default	Description
`url`	`string`	No	-	Full proxy URL (takes precedence over other fields)
`type`	`"datacenter" \| "residential"`	No	-	Proxy type
`host`	`string`	No	-	Proxy host
`port`	`number`	No	-	Proxy port
`username`	`string`	No	-	Proxy username
`password`	`string`	No	-	Proxy password
`country`	`string`	No	-	Country code for residential proxies (e.g., 'us', 'uk')

Daemon Mode (Production)

For production servers, start the daemon once and all scrape/crawl/browser requests share the warm browser pool:

import { ReaderClient } from "@vakra-dev/reader";

// Create once at startup
const reader = new ReaderClient({
  proxyPools: {
    datacenter: [{ url: "http://user:pass@dc-proxy:8080" }],
    residential: [{ url: "http://user:pass@res-proxy:8080" }],
  },
});

// Reuse for all requests
const result = await reader.scrape({ urls: ["https://example.com"] });

// Graceful shutdown
process.on("SIGTERM", () => reader.close());

How It Works

Anti-Bot Bypass

Reader uses Ulixee Hero, a headless browser with advanced anti-detection:

TLS Fingerprinting - Emulates real Chrome browser fingerprints via MITM proxy
Navigator Spoofing - webdriver=false, device memory, hardware concurrency
DNS over TLS - Uses Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1) to mimic Chrome behavior
WebRTC IP Masking - Prevents IP leaks through WebRTC connections
WebGL/Canvas Fingerprinting - Randomized rendering signatures

Browser Pool

Tiered Proxy Pools - Separate datacenter and residential pools with auto-escalation
Auto-Recycling - Browsers recycled after 100 requests or 30 minutes
Health Tracking - Auto-benches failed proxies for 5 minutes, revives on recovery
Per-Proxy Concurrency - Limits concurrent requests per proxy URL (default: 2)

HTML to Markdown: supermarkdown

Reader uses supermarkdown for HTML to Markdown conversion - a sister project we built from scratch specifically for web scraping and LLM pipelines.

Why we built it:

When you're scraping the web, you encounter messy, malformed HTML that breaks most converters. And when you're feeding content to LLMs, you need clean output without artifacts or noise. We needed a converter that handles real-world HTML reliably while producing high-quality markdown.

What supermarkdown offers:

Feature	Benefit
Written in Rust	Native performance with Node.js bindings via napi-rs
Full GFM support	Tables, task lists, strikethrough, autolinks
LLM-optimized	Clean output designed for AI consumption
Battle-tested	Handles malformed HTML from real web pages
CSS selectors	Include/exclude elements during conversion

supermarkdown is open source and available as both a Rust crate and npm package:

# npm
npm install @vakra-dev/supermarkdown

# Rust
cargo add supermarkdown

Check out the supermarkdown repository for examples and documentation.

Server Deployment

Reader uses a real Chromium browser under the hood. On headless Linux servers (VPS, EC2, etc.), you need to install Chrome's system dependencies:

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install -y libnspr4 libnss3 libatk1.0-0 libatk-bridge2.0-0 \
  libcups2 libxcb1 libatspi2.0-0 libx11-6 libxcomposite1 libxdamage1 \
  libxext6 libxfixes3 libxrandr2 libgbm1 libcairo2 libpango-1.0-0 libasound2

This is the same requirement that Puppeteer and Playwright have on headless Linux. macOS, Windows, and Linux desktops already have these libraries.

For Docker and production deployment guides, see the deployment documentation.

Documentation

Full documentation is available at docs.reader.dev, including guides for scraping, crawling, proxy configuration, browser pool management, and deployment.

Examples

Example	Description
Basic Scraping	Simple single-URL scraping
Batch Scraping	Concurrent multi-URL scraping
Crawl Website	Crawl and discover pages
Browser Session (Playwright)	Navigate, extract data, screenshot
Browser Session (Actions)	Click, type, search, wait for elements
Browser Session (Puppeteer)	Puppeteer via `connect({ browserWSEndpoint })`
Browser Session (Raw CDP)	Direct CDP WebSocket commands
Browser Pool Config	Configure browser pool for high throughput
Proxy Pool	Proxy rotation with multiple proxies
Cloudflare Bypass	Scrape Cloudflare-protected sites
All Formats	Output in markdown and html
AI Tools	OpenAI, Anthropic, LangChain integrations

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run linting
npm run lint

# Format code
npm run format

# Type check
npm run typecheck

# Find TODOs
npm run todo

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

Apache 2.0 - See LICENSE for details.

Citation

If you use Reader in your research or project, please cite it:

@software{reader.dev,
  author = {Kaul, Nihal},
  title = {Reader: Open-source, production-grade web scraping engine built for LLMs},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {GitHub},
  url = {https://github.com/vakra-dev/reader}
}

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
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.github/workflows		.github/workflows
docs		docs
examples		examples
scripts		scripts
src		src
tests		tests
.env.example		.env.example
.eslintrc.json		.eslintrc.json
.gitignore		.gitignore
.leasotrc		.leasotrc
.nvmrc		.nvmrc
.prettierrc		.prettierrc
CITATION.cff		CITATION.cff
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md		CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
SECURITY.md		SECURITY.md
ecosystem.config.cjs		ecosystem.config.cjs
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
result.md		result.md
tsconfig.json		tsconfig.json
tsup.config.ts		tsup.config.ts
vitest.config.ts		vitest.config.ts

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Reader

The Problem

The Solution

Features

Installation

Quick Start

Cloud (Fastest)

Self-Hosted

Basic Scrape

Batch Scraping with Concurrency

Crawling

Browser Session

With Proxy

With Tiered Proxy Pools

With Browser Pool Configuration

CLI Reference

Daemon Mode

reader scrape <urls...>

reader crawl <url>

reader browser

API Reference

ReaderClient

Constructor Options

BrowserPoolConfig

Methods

scrape(options): Promise<ScrapeResult>

crawl(options): Promise<CrawlResult>

browser(options?): Promise<BrowserSession>

ProxyConfig

Daemon Mode (Production)

How It Works

Anti-Bot Bypass

Browser Pool

HTML to Markdown: supermarkdown

Server Deployment

Documentation

Examples

Development

Contributing

License

Citation

Support

About

Topics

Resources

License

Code of conduct

Contributing

Security policy

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`reader scrape <urls...>`

`reader crawl <url>`

`reader browser`

`ReaderClient`

`scrape(options): Promise<ScrapeResult>`

`crawl(options): Promise<CrawlResult>`

`browser(options?): Promise<BrowserSession>`

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