# POST /crawl (Firecrawl API)
Base URL: https://api.firecrawl.dev/v1
Auth: Authorization: Bearer <FIRECRAWL_API_KEY>
Last verified: 2026-09-03

> Crawl multiple URLs based on options

## Critical Gotchas
* The `formats` field controls the output shape and defaults to `["markdown"]`. Omitting it does not return HTML — request `["markdown","html"]` explicitly.
* `/crawl` is asynchronous: it returns a job `id`, and results are collected by polling `/crawl/{id}` until `status` is `completed`.

## cURL
curl -X POST 'https://api.firecrawl.dev/v1/crawl' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FIRECRAWL_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com","excludePaths":["string"]}'

## Parameters
| Name | In | Type | Required | Description |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| url | body | string | Yes | The base URL to start crawling from |
| excludePaths | body | string[] | No | URL pathname regex patterns that excl... |
| includePaths | body | string[] | No | URL pathname regex patterns that incl... |

## Response (200 OK)
{"success":true,"id":"string","url":"https://example.com"}

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Need an API key? Get one at https://www.firecrawl.dev/signin/signup