Apify

Run any of the 17,000+ Actors on Apify Store and retrieve structured results via the REST API.

Full OpenAPI spec: openapi.json

Authentication

All requests need the APIFY_TOKEN env var. Use it as a Bearer token:

-H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN"

Base URL: https://api.apify.com

Core workflow

1. Find the right Actor

Search the Apify Store by keyword:

curl -s "https://api.apify.com/v2/store?search=web+scraper&limit=5" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" | jq '.data.items[] | {name: (.username + "/" + .name), title, description}'

Actors are identified by username~name (tilde) in API paths, e.g. apify~web-scraper.

2. Get Actor README and input schema

Before running an Actor, fetch its default build to get the README (usage docs) and input schema (expected JSON fields):

curl -s "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/apify~web-scraper/builds/default" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" | jq '.data | {readme, inputSchema}'

inputSchema is a JSON-stringified object — parse it to see required/optional fields, types, defaults, and descriptions. Use this to construct valid input for the run.

You can also get the Actor's per-build OpenAPI spec (no auth required):

curl -s "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/apify~web-scraper/builds/default/openapi.json"

3. Run an Actor (async — recommended for most cases)

Start the Actor and get the run object back immediately:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/apify~web-scraper/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"startUrls":[{"url":"https://example.com"}],"maxPagesPerCrawl":10}'

Response includes data.id (run ID), data.defaultDatasetId, data.status.

Optional query params: ?timeout=300&memory=4096&maxItems=100&waitForFinish=60

• waitForFinish (0-60): seconds the API waits before returning. Useful to avoid polling for short runs.

4. Poll run status

curl -s "https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/RUN_ID?waitForFinish=60" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" | jq '.data | {status, defaultDatasetId}'

Terminal statuses: SUCCEEDED, FAILED, ABORTED, TIMED-OUT.

5. Get results

Dataset items (most common — structured scraped data):

curl -s "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/DATASET_ID/items?clean=true&limit=100" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN"

Or directly from the run (shortcut — same parameters):

curl -s "https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/RUN_ID/dataset/items?clean=true&limit=100" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN"

Params: format (json|csv|jsonl|xml|xlsx|rss), fields, omit, limit, offset, clean, desc.

Key-value store record (screenshots, HTML, OUTPUT):