> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.adscrawl.net/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Quick Start: Make Your First AdsCrawl API Request Today

> Create a free AdsCrawl account, grab your API key from the dashboard, and make your first rendered HTML or Markdown request in under five minutes.

AdsCrawl is designed to be usable from your first request. This guide walks you from account creation to a working API call — no configuration files, no infrastructure setup, and no proxy accounts to manage separately. By the end, you'll have a rendered page response in your terminal and a clear path to whichever API fits your use case.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Create a free account">
    Go to [app.adscrawl.net/register](https://app.adscrawl.net/register/) and sign up. The Free plan gives you 500 credits with no credit card required — enough to explore HTML extraction, screenshots, and short CDP sessions.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Copy your API key">
    After signing in, open the [AdsCrawl dashboard](https://app.adscrawl.net/dashboard/) and copy your API key. Store it as an environment variable on your server or in a secret manager.

    ```bash theme={null}
    export ADSCRAWL_API_KEY="your-api-key"
    ```

    <Warning>
      Never paste your API key into client-side JavaScript, commit it to source control, or include it in a public URL. Keep it on your server only.
    </Warning>
  </Step>

  <Step title="Make your first request">
    Use `POST /html` to fetch a rendered page. This endpoint is synchronous — AdsCrawl launches a real browser, loads the URL, and streams the result back in the HTTP response.

    Set `contentMode` to control what you get back:

    * `"html"` — full rendered page HTML (default)
    * `"markdown"` — clean, readable Markdown extracted by the Readability parser
    * `"json"` — structured article object with title, byline, excerpt, and body

    <CodeGroup>
      ```bash cURL theme={null}
      export ADSCRAWL_API_KEY="your-api-key"

      curl --fail-with-body -sS -X POST "https://api.adscrawl.net/html" \
        -H "content-type: application/json" \
        -H "x-api-key: $ADSCRAWL_API_KEY" \
        -d '{
          "url": "https://example.com/article",
          "contentMode": "markdown",
          "waitUntil": "domcontentloaded"
        }'
      ```

      ```javascript JavaScript (fetch) theme={null}
      const response = await fetch("https://api.adscrawl.net/html", {
        method: "POST",
        headers: {
          "content-type": "application/json",
          "x-api-key": process.env.ADSCRAWL_API_KEY,
        },
        body: JSON.stringify({
          url: "https://example.com/article",
          contentMode: "markdown",
          waitUntil: "domcontentloaded",
        }),
      });

      const markdown = await response.text();
      console.log(markdown);
      ```

      ```python Python theme={null}
      import os
      import requests

      response = requests.post(
          "https://api.adscrawl.net/html",
          headers={
              "content-type": "application/json",
              "x-api-key": os.environ["ADSCRAWL_API_KEY"],
          },
          json={
              "url": "https://example.com/article",
              "contentMode": "markdown",
              "waitUntil": "domcontentloaded",
          },
      )

      print(response.text)
      ```
    </CodeGroup>

    Use `"waitUntil": "domcontentloaded"` for most HTML and Markdown extraction — it's faster and avoids waiting on analytics or lazy-loaded resources. Switch to `"load"` or `"networkidle"` when the content you need depends on secondary resources or deferred JavaScript.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Check the response">
    A successful request returns HTTP `200`. The response body depends on `contentMode`:

    <Tabs>
      <Tab title="markdown (text/markdown)">
        ```markdown theme={null}
        # Example Article

        Readable body content extracted from the page.

        - Key point one
        - Key point two
        ```
      </Tab>

      <Tab title="json (application/json)">
        ```json theme={null}
        {
          "title": "Example Article",
          "byline": "Jane Smith",
          "excerpt": "A concise summary of the article.",
          "siteName": "Example",
          "lang": "en",
          "dir": null,
          "content": "<div><p>Readable body...</p></div>",
          "textContent": "Readable body...",
          "length": 2487,
          "publishedTime": null
        }
        ```
      </Tab>

      <Tab title="html (text/html)">
        ```html theme={null}
        <!DOCTYPE html>
        <html lang="en">
          <head><title>Example Article</title></head>
          <body>
            <!-- Full rendered page HTML -->
          </body>
        </html>
        ```
      </Tab>
    </Tabs>

    If you receive a `402`, your account is out of credits — check your balance in the dashboard. A `401` means the API key is missing or incorrect.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## What to explore next

AdsCrawl has five APIs. Start with the one that fits your workflow:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Browser Tasks" icon="browser" href="/concepts/browser-tasks">
    HTML, Markdown, JSON, screenshots, and structured field extraction from SPAs.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Remote CDP" icon="plug" href="/concepts/remote-cdp">
    Connect Playwright or Puppeteer to a remote browser for scripted automation.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Cloud Browsers" icon="cloud" href="/concepts/cloud-browsers">
    Persistent browser profiles with a live viewer, saved cookies, and reusable state.
  </Card>

  <Card title="API Reference" icon="code" href="/api-reference/html">
    Complete request and response schemas for every endpoint.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

<Tip>
  If you'd prefer to let your coding agent handle setup, paste this prompt into your agent:

  ```text theme={null}
  Set up AdsCrawl in this codebase. Use https://api.adscrawl.net/auth.md to help me
  create an account and authorize an API key, then follow
  https://api.adscrawl.net/docs/agent-quickstart.md to complete the integration.
  ```

  The agent will walk you through sign-up and integration. You approve the API key request in your browser.
</Tip>

Once you've made your first successful request, read the [Authentication](/authentication) page to understand the full credential model — especially if you plan to use Cloud Browsers or CDP sessions.