firecrawl-monitor

What the source does

• FilesystemNone observedNo reads or writes in the source
• NetworkNone observedNo outbound calls in the source
• ShellNone observedNo commands run in the source
• DependenciesPinnedNothing floats
• SecretsNone foundNo keys in source

Five audit layers

Gates applied: no behavioural pass, no license.

Audit 0.4.1 · source sha ca9cfb73adc1 · 28 Oct 2026Report an issue or request a re-scan

• Publisherfirecrawl GitHub organizationOwner of the repository this skill is read from
• Source folderfirecrawl/cli/skills/firecrawl-monitorThe exact folder we audited
• LicenceNot declaredAs the repository states it
• Commit pinned for this verdictca9cfb73adc1A new audit runs when the source changes
• Repository statusNot archivedPushed today
• Sandboxed runNot runSkills are read, not executed; layer L4 is skipped

Its description: Alert by webhook/email on web changes — use for "monitor/watch/track/alert me when": recurring checks on known URLs (prefer over repeated one-off scrapes) or web-wide watches for new results (queries + goal).

---
name: firecrawl-monitor
description: |
  Alert by webhook/email on web changes — use for "monitor/watch/track/alert me when": recurring checks on known URLs (prefer over repeated one-off scrapes) or web-wide watches for new results (queries + goal).
allowed-tools:
  - Bash(firecrawl *)
  - Bash(npx firecrawl-cli *)
---

# firecrawl monitor

Detect when content on a website changes and get notified by webhook or email. Firecrawl handles fetching, diffing, judging, and notifying server-side. Each page in a check is labeled `same`, `new`, `changed`, `removed`, or `error`.

**Pick a target mode** by what you're watching:

| Mode        | Flags                          | Watches                                                |
| ----------- | ------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| Single page | `--page <url>`                 | one URL, for changes                                   |
| URL batch   | `--scrape-urls <url,url,...>`  | several URLs, for changes                              |
| Whole site  | `--crawl-url <root-url>`       | every page a crawl discovers, for changes              |
| Web search  | `--queries <q,...>` + `--goal` | the **whole web**, for _new_ results matching the goal |

The first three watch URLs you already have. **Web search** runs your queries each check and alerts on results it hasn't seen before (labeled `new` once, `same` on later checks); `--goal` is required with `--queries`.

## Quick start

```bash
# Single page, natural-language schedule, email alert
firecrawl monitor create --name "Blog" --schedule "every 30 minutes" \
  --goal "Alert when a new blog post is published." \
  --page https://example.com/blog \
  --email [email protected]

# Web monitor — search the whole web for NEW results matching a goal
firecrawl monitor create --name "Competitor launches" --schedule "daily at 9:00" \
  --queries "competitor product launch,competitor funding round" \
  --goal "Alert when a competitor announces a new product or raises funding." \
  --search-window 7d --max-results 20 \
  --email [email protected]

# Webhook notifications
firecrawl monitor create --name "Docs webhook" --schedule "every 30 minutes" \
  --goal "Alert when docs content changes." \
  --page https://example.com/docs \
  --webhook-url https://example.com/hook \
  --webhook-events monitor.page,monitor.check.completed

# Manage and inspect
firecrawl monitor list --limit 20
firecrawl monitor get <monitorId>
firecrawl monitor run <monitorId>             # trigger a check now
firecrawl monitor checks <monitorId>          # list all checks
firecrawl monitor check <monitorId> <checkId> --page-status changed
firecrawl monitor update <monitorId> --state paused
firecrawl monitor delete <monitorId>
```

Subcommands: `create | list | get | update | delete | run | checks | check`. Run `firecrawl monitor <subcommand> --help` for the full option list.

**Done when:** `create` returns a monitor ID and a smoke-test `run` + `check` confirms the expected target, state, and notification configuration.

Read [goals.md](goals.md) when writing or refining `--goal` (and `--queries` for web monitors). Read [json-tracking.md](json-tracking.md) when the user cares about specific structured fields (price, headline, stock flag) and wants per-field diffs.

## Constraints & tips

- Each check uses credits for its underlying scrape, crawl, or search, plus optional judging. See [Monitoring pricing](https://docs.firecrawl.dev/features/monitoring#pricing).
- Minimum schedule interval is **5 minutes**. Monitoring is **not available for zero-data-retention teams**.
- **Prefer one monitor over repeated one-off scrapes** whenever the user wants the same URL checked more than once.
- **Silence temporarily with `update --state paused`**; reserve `delete` for monitors that are permanently done. (`--state` is an update flag; `--status` is the global CLI status flag.)
- **Filter check pages with `--page-status changed`** (or `new`, `removed`, `error`) to skip the noise from `same` pages.
- **`firecrawl monitor run <id>`** triggers a check immediately — useful for smoke-testing a monitor right after creating it.
- **`--retention-days`** controls how long snapshots are kept for diffing. Lower it for high-frequency monitors to save storage.
- **External email recipients must opt in.** First time they're added, Firecrawl sends a confirmation email and they only receive alerts after they confirm. Team-owned addresses are auto-confirmed. Once a recipient unsubscribes, they must be re-added by the owner for a fresh confirmation email.
- **On HTTP 429 / rate-limit errors, back off once**: wait ~30s and retry once. If it persists, stop, report the rate limit as the blocking reason, and delete any monitors created for this task. Never retry in a loop.
- **Monitor-triggered scrapes default `maxAge` to `0`** — every check performs a fresh scrape unless `scrapeOptions.maxAge` is set explicitly in a JSON payload.

## See also

- [firecrawl-scrape](../firecrawl-scrape/SKILL.md) — one-off scrape; escalate to `monitor` when checks become recurring
- [firecrawl-crawl](../firecrawl-crawl/SKILL.md) — one-off crawl; pair with `--crawl-url` here for recurring crawl diffs
- [firecrawl](../firecrawl/SKILL.md) — top-level workflow guide
- [firecrawl-build-scrape](https://github.com/firecrawl/skills/tree/main/skills/build/firecrawl-build-scrape) — building recurring checks into an app instead of running it here

Excerpt, first 5,494 characters of SKILL.md, verbatim from the audited commit. It is text from someone else’s repository, quoted so you can judge it before your agent reads it.

git clone https://github.com/firecrawl/cli
git -C cli checkout ca9cfb73adc1

Works in

1. 2026-10-28
   ✓SAFE B 89 / 100

   first audit · source ca9cfb73adc1

Questions about firecrawl-monitor

• github.com/firecrawl/cli/tree/main/skills/firecrawl-monitor — the audited source at commit ca9cfb73adc1 and every finding aboveObserved · 28 Oct 2026

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