# Scrapy Books Example (`vdusek/scrapy-books-example`) Actor

Example of Python Scrapy project. It scrapes book data from https://books.toscrape.com/.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/vdusek/scrapy-books-example.md
- **Developed by:** [Vlada Dusek](https://apify.com/vdusek) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Open source
- **Stats:** 20 total users, 0 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 2 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Scrapy Books Example

An example [Scrapy](https://scrapy.org/) project wrapped as an Apify Actor. It scrapes book data (title, price, rating, availability) from [books.toscrape.com](https://books.toscrape.com/) and stores each book in the run's default dataset.

It shows how to run an existing Scrapy spider on the Apify platform — see [Integrating Scrapy projects](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs/integrating-scrapy).

### Run locally

This is a [uv](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/)-managed project. You'll also need the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs/installation).

```bash
uv sync                # install dependencies into .venv/
apify run --purge      # run as an Apify Actor (reads local INPUT.json)
```

It also still runs as a plain Scrapy project:

```bash
uv run scrapy crawl book_spider -o books.json
```

### Deploy to Apify

```bash
apify login            # once, with your API token
apify push             # build and deploy the Actor
```

Find your deployed Actor under [Actors → My Actors](https://console.apify.com/actors?tab=my).

### Learn more

- [Integrating Scrapy projects](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs/integrating-scrapy)
- [Apify SDK for Python](https://docs.apify.com/sdk/python)
- [Apify platform docs](https://docs.apify.com/platform)

# Actor input Schema

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Specifies proxy servers that will be used by the scraper in order to hide its origin.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `books` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("vdusek/scrapy-books-example").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True } }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("vdusek/scrapy-books-example").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}' |
apify call vdusek/scrapy-books-example --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,vdusek/scrapy-books-example"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/E8T4AZFTmprSS9h9A/builds/hUArx1FIjKZciHiNN/openapi.json