ContextQMD
Back to Crewai

Apify Actors

docs/en/tools/automation/apifyactorstool.mdx

1.14.5a24.0 KB
Original Source

ApifyActorsTool

Integrate Apify Actors into your CrewAI workflows.

Description

The ApifyActorsTool connects Apify Actors, cloud-based programs for web scraping and automation, to your CrewAI workflows. Use any of the 4,000+ Actors on Apify Store for use cases such as extracting data from social media, search engines, online maps, e-commerce sites, travel portals, or general websites.

For details, see the Apify CrewAI integration in Apify documentation.

Steps to get started

<Steps> <Step title="Install dependencies"> Install `crewai[tools]` and `langchain-apify` using pip: `pip install 'crewai[tools]' langchain-apify`. </Step> <Step title="Obtain an Apify API token"> Sign up to [Apify Console](https://console.apify.com/) and get your [Apify API token](https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).. </Step> <Step title="Configure environment"> Set your Apify API token as the `APIFY_API_TOKEN` environment variable to enable the tool's functionality. </Step> </Steps>

Usage example

Use the ApifyActorsTool manually to run the RAG Web Browser Actor to perform a web search:

python
from crewai_tools import ApifyActorsTool

# Initialize the tool with an Apify Actor
tool = ApifyActorsTool(actor_name="apify/rag-web-browser")

# Run the tool with input parameters
results = tool.run(run_input={"query": "What is CrewAI?", "maxResults": 5})

# Process the results
for result in results:
    print(f"URL: {result['metadata']['url']}")
    print(f"Content: {result.get('markdown', 'N/A')[:100]}...")

Expected output

Here is the output from running the code above:

text
URL: https://www.example.com/crewai-intro
Content: CrewAI is a framework for building AI-powered workflows...
URL: https://docs.crewai.com/
Content: Official documentation for CrewAI...

The ApifyActorsTool automatically fetches the Actor definition and input schema from Apify using the provided actor_name and then constructs the tool description and argument schema. This means you need to specify only a valid actor_name, and the tool handles the rest when used with agents—no need to specify the run_input. Here's how it works:

python
from crewai import Agent
from crewai_tools import ApifyActorsTool

rag_browser = ApifyActorsTool(actor_name="apify/rag-web-browser")

agent = Agent(
    role="Research Analyst",
    goal="Find and summarize information about specific topics",
    backstory="You are an experienced researcher with attention to detail",
    tools=[rag_browser],
)

You can run other Actors from Apify Store simply by changing the actor_name and, when using it manually, adjusting the run_input based on the Actor input schema.

For an example of usage with agents, see the CrewAI Actor template.

Configuration

The ApifyActorsTool requires these inputs to work:

  • actor_name The ID of the Apify Actor to run, e.g., "apify/rag-web-browser". Browse all Actors on Apify Store.
  • run_input A dictionary of input parameters for the Actor when running the tool manually.
    • For example, for the apify/rag-web-browser Actor: {"query": "search term", "maxResults": 5}
    • See the Actor's input schema for the list of input parameters.

Resources