Reddit's .json API rejects the wreq-Chrome TLS fingerprint with a
403 even from residential IPs. Their block list includes known
browser-emulation library fingerprints. wreq-Firefox passes. The
CLI `vertical` subcommand already forced Firefox; MCP
`vertical_scrape` was still falling back to the long-lived
`self.fetch_client` which defaults to Chrome, so reddit failed
on MCP and nobody noticed because the earlier test runs all had
an API key set that masked the issue.
Switched vertical_scrape to reuse `self.firefox_or_build()` which
gives us the cached Firefox client (same pattern the scrape tool
uses when the caller requests `browser: firefox`). Firefox is
strictly-safer-than-Chrome for every vertical in the catalog, so
making it the hard default for `vertical_scrape` is the right call.
Verified end-to-end from a clean shell with no WEBCLAW_API_KEY:
- MCP reddit: 679ms, post/author/6 comments correct
- MCP instagram_profile: 1157ms, 18471 followers
No change to the `scrape` tool -- it keeps the user-selectable
browser param.
Bumps version to 0.5.3.
Wires the vertical extractor catalog into both the CLI and the MCP
server so users don't have to hit the HTTP API to invoke them. Same
semantics as `/v1/scrape/{vertical}` + `/v1/extractors`.
CLI (webclaw-cli):
- New subcommand `webclaw extractors` lists all 28 extractors with
name, label, and sample URL. `--json` flag emits the full catalog
as machine-readable JSON.
- New subcommand `webclaw vertical <name> <url>` runs a specific
extractor and prints typed JSON. Pretty-printed by default; `--raw`
for single-line. Exits 1 with a clear "URL does not match" error
on mismatch.
- FetchClient built with Firefox profile + cloud fallback attached
when WEBCLAW_API_KEY is set, so antibot-gated verticals escalate.
MCP (webclaw-mcp):
- New tool `list_extractors` (no args) returns the catalog as
pretty-printed JSON for in-session discovery.
- New tool `vertical_scrape` takes `{name, url}` and returns typed
JSON. Reuses the long-lived self.fetch_client.
- Tool count goes from 10 to 12. Server-info instruction string
updated accordingly.
Tests: 215 passing, clippy clean. Manual surface-tested end-to-end:
CLI prints real Reddit/github/pypi data; MCP JSON-RPC session returns
28-entry catalog + typed responses for pypi/requests + rust-lang/rust
in 200-400ms.
Version bumped to 0.5.2 (minor for API additions, backwards compatible).
The local-first / cloud-fallback flow was duplicated in two places:
- webclaw-mcp/src/cloud.rs (302 lines, canonical)
- webclaw-cli/src/cloud.rs (80 lines, minimal subset kept to avoid
pulling rmcp as a dep)
Move to the shared crate where all vertical extractors and the new
webclaw-server can also reach it.
## New module: webclaw-fetch/src/cloud.rs
Single canonical home. Consolidates both previous versions and
promotes the error type from stringy to typed:
- `CloudError` enum with dedicated variants for the four HTTP
outcomes callers act on differently — 401 (key rejected),
402 (insufficient plan), 429 (rate limited), plus ServerError /
Network / ParseFailed. Each variant's Display message ends with
an actionable URL (signup / pricing / dashboard) so API consumers
can surface it verbatim.
- `From<CloudError> for String` bridge so the dozen existing
`.await?` call sites in MCP / CLI that expected `Result<_, String>`
keep compiling. We can migrate them to the typed error per-site
later without a churn commit.
- `CloudClient::new(Option<&str>)` matches the CLI's `--api-key`
flag pattern (explicit key wins, env fallback, None when empty).
`::from_env()` kept for MCP-style call sites.
- `with_key_and_base` for staging / integration tests.
- `scrape / post / get / fetch_html` — `fetch_html` is new, a
convenience that calls /v1/scrape with formats=["html"] and
returns the raw HTML string so vertical extractors can plug
antibot-bypassed HTML straight into their parsers.
- `is_bot_protected` + `needs_js_rendering` detectors moved
over verbatim. Detection patterns are public (CF / DataDome /
AWS WAF challenge-page signatures) — no moat leak.
- `smart_fetch` kept on the original `Result<_, String>`
signature so MCP's six call sites compile unchanged.
- `smart_fetch_html` is new: the local-first-then-cloud flow
for the vertical-extractor pattern, returning the typed
`CloudError` so extractors can emit precise upgrade-path
messages.
## Cleanup
- Deleted webclaw-mcp/src/cloud.rs — all imports now resolve to
`webclaw_fetch:☁️:*`. Dropped reqwest as a direct dep of
webclaw-mcp (it only used it for the old cloud client).
- Deleted webclaw-cli/src/cloud.rs. CLI keeps reqwest for its
webhook / on-change / research HTTP calls.
- webclaw-fetch now has reqwest as a direct dep. It was already
transitively pulled in by webclaw-llm; this just makes the
dependency relationship explicit at the call site.
## Tests
16 new unit tests cover:
- CloudError status mapping (401/402/429/5xx)
- NotConfigured error includes signup URL
- CloudClient::new explicit-key-wins-over-env + empty-string = None
- base_url strips trailing slash
- Detector matrix (CF challenge / Turnstile / real content with
embedded Turnstile / SPA skeleton / real article with script tags)
- truncate respects char boundaries (don't slice inside UTF-8)
Full workspace test suite still passes (~500 tests). fmt + clippy
clean. No behavior change for existing MCP / CLI call sites.
cargo install webclaw-mcp on a fresh machine prints
warning: field `tool_router` is never read
--> crates/webclaw-mcp/src/server.rs:22:5
The field is essential — dropping it unregisters every MCP tool. The
warning shows up because rmcp 1.3.x changed how the #[tool_handler]
macro reads the field: instead of referencing it by name in the
generated impl, it goes through a derived trait method. rustc's
dead-code lint sees only the named usage and fires.
The field stays. Annotated with #[allow(dead_code)] and a comment
explaining the situation so the next person looking at this doesn't
remove the field thinking it's actually unused.
No behaviour change. Verified clean compile under rmcp 1.3.0 in our
lock; the warning will disappear for anyone running cargo install
against this commit.
Three P3 items from the 2026-04-16 audit. Bump to 0.3.17.
webclaw-fetch/sitemap.rs: parse_robots_txt used trimmed[..8] slice
plus eq_ignore_ascii_case for the directive test. That was fragile:
"Sitemap :" (space before colon) fell through silently, inline
"# ..." comments leaked into the URL, and a line with no URL at all
returned an empty string. Rewritten to split on the first colon,
match any-case "sitemap" as the directive name, strip comments, and
require `://` in the value. +7 unit tests cover case variants,
space-before-colon, comments, empty values, non-URL values, and
non-sitemap directives.
webclaw-fetch/crawler.rs: is_cancelled uses Ordering::Acquire
instead of Relaxed. Behaviourally equivalent on current hardware for
single-word atomic loads, but the explicit ordering documents intent
for readers + compilers.
webclaw-mcp/server.rs: add lazy OnceLock cache for the Firefox
FetchClient. Tool calls that repeatedly request the firefox profile
without cookies used to build a fresh reqwest pool + TLS stack per
call. Chrome (default) already used the long-lived field; Random is
per-call by design; cookie-bearing requests still build ad-hoc since
the cookie header is part of the client shape.
Tests: 85 webclaw-fetch (was 78, +7 new sitemap), 272 webclaw-core,
43 webclaw-llm, 11 CLI — all green. Clippy clean across workspace.
Refs: docs/AUDIT-2026-04-16.md P3 section
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Research results saved to ~/.webclaw/research/ (report.md + full.json).
MCP returns file paths + findings instead of the full report, preventing
"exceeds maximum allowed tokens" errors in Claude/Cursor.
Same query returns cached result instantly without spending credits.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
- --research "query": deep research via cloud API, saves JSON file with
report + sources + findings, prints report to stdout
- --deep: longer, more thorough research mode
- MCP extract/summarize: cloud fallback when no local LLM available
- MCP research: returns structured JSON instead of raw text
- Bump to v0.3.7
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
- --cookie-file reads Chrome extension format ([{name, value, domain, ...}])
- Works with EditThisCookie, Cookie-Editor, and similar browser extensions
- Merges with --cookie when both provided
- MCP scrape tool now accepts cookies parameter
- Closes#7
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Response.headers() now returns &http::HeaderMap instead of
&HashMap<String, String>. Updated FetchResult, is_pdf_content_type,
is_document_content_type, is_bot_protected, and all related tests.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Crawl:
- Real-time progress on stderr as pages complete
- --crawl-state saves progress on Ctrl+C, resumes from saved state
- Visited set + remaining frontier persisted for accurate resume
MCP server:
- Reads WEBCLAW_PROXY and WEBCLAW_PROXY_FILE env vars
- Falls back to proxies.txt in CWD (existing behavior)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Critical:
- MCP server identifies as "webclaw-mcp" instead of "rmcp"
- Research tool poll loop capped at 200 iterations (~10 min)
CLI:
- Non-zero exit codes on errors
- Text format strips markdown table syntax
MCP server:
- URL validation on all tools
- 60s cloud API timeout, 30s local fetch timeout
- Diff cloud fallback computes actual diff
- Batch capped at 100 URLs, crawl at 500 pages
- Graceful startup failure instead of panic
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
