Toolgate Firecrawl

A recoverable Firecrawl MCP server powered by Toolgate.

Every paid scrape goes through a full lifecycle: balance check → execute → charge → trace. If it fails, you get a refund or fallback — never a silent loss.

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What happens when you scrape

Agent calls scrape_url
  → Toolgate checks idempotency (duplicate? return cached)
  → Toolgate checks balance (enough? deduct $0.10)
  → Firecrawl scrapes the URL (JS-rendered, clean markdown)
  → On success: charge confirmed, trace saved
  → On failure: refund issued, trace saved with reason
  → On no balance: fallback (fetch+cheerio metadata) returned free

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Quick Start

Install & run (demo mode — no API key needed)

npm install
npm run dev

Demo mode uses fetch+cheerio as the scraping backend. scrape_url and balance tools work out of the box. No Firecrawl credits consumed.

Claude Desktop — demo mode

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "toolgate-firecrawl": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/toolgate-firecrawl-mcp/dist/server.js"],
      "env": {
        "TOOLGATE_DEMO_MODE": "true"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop — production (real Firecrawl)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "toolgate-firecrawl": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/toolgate-firecrawl-mcp/dist/server.js"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "fc-your-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

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Tools

Tool	Price	Description
scrape_url	$0.10/call	Scrape a URL → clean markdown. Fallback: basic metadata free.
web_search	$0.01/result (min $0.05)	Web search via Firecrawl. Requires API key.
extract_data	$0.15/call	Structured JSON extraction with schema. Requires API key.
check_balance	free	Check your current Toolgate balance.
add_balance	free	Add demo balance (demo mode only).
view_traces	free	View recent execution traces with decisions and charge status.

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Demo

npm run scenario

Example output:

{
  "passed": 6,
  "failed": 0,
  "skipped": 2,
  "scenarios": [
    { "name": "url_validation_ssrf", "passed": true },
    { "name": "payment_missing_fallback", "passed": true },
    { "name": "credit_balance", "passed": true },
    { "name": "paid_scrape", "passed": true },
    { "name": "duplicate_request", "passed": true },
    { "name": "unreachable_url", "skipped": true, "reason": "network" },
    { "name": "free_tier_not_applicable", "passed": true },
    { "name": "trace_output", "passed": true }
  ]
}

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How Toolgate works here

Toolgate wraps every Firecrawl call with a payment lifecycle. Each call gets an idempotency key — retrying with the same key returns the cached result at no extra cost. If the Firecrawl call fails after payment was deducted, the charge is automatically refunded. Every decision is recorded in a queryable execution trace.

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Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
FIRECRAWL_API_KEY	—	Firecrawl API key. Omit for demo mode.
FIRECRAWL_API_URL	https://api.firecrawl.dev	Firecrawl API base URL.
TOOLGATE_PUBLISHER_KEY	tg_firecrawl_demo	Toolgate publisher key.
TOOLGATE_DEMO_MODE	true if no API key	Force demo mode.
TOOLGATE_PRELOAD_BALANCE	1.0 (demo only)	USD pre-loaded in demo mode.
SCRAPE_TIMEOUT_MS	15000	Timeout for scrape requests.
MAX_RESPONSE_BYTES	5242880 (5MB)	Max response size.

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Built with

• @tkorkmaz/toolgate — paid-action runtime
• @mendable/firecrawl-js — scraping engine
• @modelcontextprotocol/sdk — MCP server/client

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License

MIT