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

> Start a deep research operation on a query

## 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/deep-research' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FIRECRAWL_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query":"string","maxDepth":7}'

## Parameters
| Name | In | Type | Required | Description |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| query | body | string | Yes | The query to research |
| maxDepth | body | integer | No | Maximum depth of research iterations |
| timeLimit | body | integer | No | Time limit in seconds |

## Response (200 OK)
{"success":true,"id":"00000000-0000-4000-8000-000000000000"}

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