Quickstart

1. Get a key

The raw key is shown once, at creation. The console keeps a copy in the browser that created it, but a key made elsewhere has to be pasted in. Store it in your secret manager the moment you see it.

Registration is closed in production, so accounts are created by hand. If you do not have one, ask us.

2. Make a request

curl -X POST 'https://api.helicitylabs.com/scrape' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY' \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "render_js": false,
    "proxy_type": "datacenter"
  }'

url and proxy_type are the only required fields. This example sets render_js: false because example.com needs no JavaScript — that is also the cheapest combination, at 1 credit.

3. Read the response

{
  "ok": true,
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "final_url": "https://example.com",
  "status": 200,
  "body": "<!doctype html>...",
  "body_length": 1256,
  "body_encoding": "utf-8",
  "content_type": "text/html; charset=utf-8",
  "elapsed_ms": 340,
  "blocked": false,
  "block_reason": null,
  "redirects": []
}

Check ok first, then status. They are different questions: ok is whether we reached the site, status is what the site said. A 404 from the target is ok: true with status: 404 — we did our job, the page is not there.

blocked: true means the response looks like an anti-bot challenge rather than the page you wanted. It still counts as a delivered run; see Credits.

4. Decide what you need

The defaults are deliberately plain. Reach for more only when a site needs it:

The page renders client-side → keep render_js: true (the default).
The site blocks datacenter IPs → "proxy_type": "premium".
You need a specific country → add country_code. See Proxies.
The data is behind a login → see Sessions and logins.