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Development in web IDE

Create your first Actor using the web IDE in Apify Console.

Create the Actor​

Prerequisites

To use Web IDE, you will need an Apify account. You can sign-up for a free account on the Apify website.

After you sign in to Apify Console, navigate to the Actors section. Then, click the Develop new button at the top right corner of the page.

Create Actor

You will be redirected to a page containing various Actor development templates for popular languages such as JavaScript, TypeScript, and Python. These templates provide boilerplate code and a preconfigured environment tailored to specific use cases. You can choose the template that best suits your technology stack. For demonstration purposes, let's choose Crawlee + Puppeteer + Chrome.

Templates

After choosing the template your Actor will be automatically named and you will be redirected to its page.

Explore the source code​

The provided boilerplate code utilizes the Apify SDK combined with Crawlee, Apify's popular open-source Node.js web scraping library. By default the code performs a recursive crawl of the apify.com website, but you can change it to a website of your choosing.

Crawlee

Crawlee is an open-source Node.js library designed for web scraping and browser automation. It helps you build reliable crawlers quickly and efficiently.

Actor source code

Build the Actor​

To run your Actor, you need to build it first. Click the Build button below the source code to start the build process.

Once the build has been initiated, the UI will transition to the Last build tab, displaying the progress of the build and the Docker build log.

Actor build

Actor creation flow

The UI includes four tabs:

  • Code
  • Last build
  • Input
  • Last Run

This represents the Actor creation flow, where you first build the Actor from the source code. Once the build is successful, you can provide input parameters and initiate an Actor run.

Run the Actor​

Once the Actor is built, you can look at its input, which consists of one field - Start URL, the URL where the crawling starts. Below the input, you can adjust the Run options:

  • Build
  • Timeout
  • Memory limit

Actor input

To initiate an Actor run, click the Start button at the bottom of the page. Once the run is created, you can monitor its progress and view the log in real-time. The Output tab will display the results of the Actor's execution, which will be populated as the run progresses. You can abort the run at any time using the Abort button.

Actor run

Pull the Actor​

To continue development locally, you can pull the Actor's source code to your local machine.

Prerequisites

Install apify-cli :

brew install apify-cli

To pull your Actor, you need to:

  1. Log in to the Apify platform

    apify login

  2. Pull your Actor using the following command:

    apify pull your-actor-name

    Or with a specific version:

    apify pull your-actor-name --version [version_number]

    As your-actor-name, you can use either:

    • The unique name of the Actor (e.g., apify/hello-world)
    • The ID of the Actor (e.g., E2jjCZBezvAZnX8Rb)

You can find both by clicking on the Actor title at the top of the page, which will open a new window containing the Actor's unique name and ID.

Iterate & customize​

After pulling the Actor's source code to your local machine, you can modify and customize it to match your specific requirements. Leverage your preferred code editor or development environment to make the necessary changes and enhancements.

Once you've made the desired changes, you can push the updated code back to the Apify platform for deployment & execution, leveraging the platform's scalability and reliability.

To learn more about the Apify platform's features and best practices for Actor development:

  • Continue to the next chapter of this section for in-depth guidance and examples
  • Visit the Apify Academy to access a comprehensive collection of tutorials, documentation, and learning resources.