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FAQ

Does Crawlith respect robots.txt?

Yes. By default, Crawlith follows all robots.txt rules and respects crawl-delay directives to ensure it doesn’t overload your server. Use the --ignore-robots flag only if you have explicit permission.

Can it crawl massive sites?

Yes. Crawlith uses an on-disk SQLite database to store crawl state, which keeps memory usage low even for sites with tens of thousands of URLs. For large runs, we recommend using the --limit, --depth, and --concurrency flags to manage performance.

Does it support JavaScript rendering (SPAs)?

Currently, Crawlith is a high-speed static crawler. It parses the HTML returned by your server but does not execute client-side JavaScript. Support for Playwright-based rendering is planned for future releases.

How is the Health Score calculated?

The Health Score is a weighted metric (0-100) that penalizes critical issues like broken links or redirect loops while rewarding structural soundess and SEO fundamentals.

Where is my crawl data stored?

All crawl history and project metadata are stored in a local SQLite database at ~/.crawlith/crawlith.db. This file is protected with user-only permissions (0o600).

Can I use Crawlith in a CI/CD pipeline?

Absolutely. Crawlith is designed for automation. Use the --format json flag for machine-readable results and --fail-on-critical to exit with an error code if the site health drops below a certain threshold. Crawlith discovers external links and tracks them to report on your outbound link ratio, but it will not crawl the content of pages on different domains unless they are explicitly whitelisted.