Call actor
This example demonstrates how to start an Apify Actor using
Actor.call()
and how to call the Apify API using
Actor.newClient()
.
The script gets a random weird word and its explanation from randomword.com
and sends it to your email using the apify/send-mail
Actor.
To make the example work, you'll need an Apify account.
Go to the Settings - Integrations page to obtain your API token
and set it to the APIFY_TOKEN
environment variable,
or run the script using the Apify CLI. If you deploy this Actor to the Apify Cloud, you can do things like set
up a scheduler to run your Actor early in the morning.
To see what other Actors are available, visit the Apify Store.
To run this example on Apify Platform, use the
apify/actor-node-puppeteer-chrome
image for your Dockerfile.
import { Actor } from 'apify';
import { launchPuppeteer } from 'crawlee';
await Actor.init();
// Launch the web browser.
const browser = await launchPuppeteer();
console.log('Obtaining own email address...');
const apifyClient = Actor.newClient();
const { email } = await apifyClient.user().get();
// Load randomword.com and get a random word
console.log('Fetching a random word.');
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://randomword.com/');
const randomWord = await page.$eval('#shared_section', (el) => el.outerHTML);
// Send random word to your email. For that, you can use an Actor we already
// have available on the platform under the name: apify/send-mail.
// The second parameter to the Actor.call() invocation is the Actor's
// desired input. You can find the required input parameters by checking
// the Actor's documentation page: https://apify.com/apify/send-mail
console.log(`Sending email to ${user.email}...`);
await Actor.call('apify/send-mail', {
to: email,
subject: 'Random Word',
html: `<h1>Random Word</h1>${randomWord}`,
});
console.log('Email sent. Good luck!');
// Close Browser
await browser.close();
await Actor.exit();