Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
npx skills add thirdwatch-dev/scraping-skills --skill anti-bot-scrapinggit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/thirdwatch-dev/scraping-skillsWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/thirdwatch-dev/scraping-skills/anti-bot-scraping)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/thirdwatch-dev/scraping-skills/anti-bot-scraping"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/thirdwatch-dev/scraping-skills/anti-bot-scraping/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/thirdwatch-dev/scraping-skills/anti-bot-scraping"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/thirdwatch-dev/scraping-skills/anti-bot-scraping.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00216 | $0.02376 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00108 | $0.01188 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00043 | $0.00475 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00022 | $0.00238 |
Grade A, and why
anti-bot-scraping scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Makes network callslowCapability
Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.
data = await page.evaluate("""async (u) => (await fetch(u)).json()""", api_url) How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 130 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Anti-Bot Scraping
How to get past anti-bot protection when a site blocks your scraper. Diagnose first, then climb the cheapest-first ladder — most "blocks" are solved without a browser.
Bypass anti-bot only to reach publicly accessible data you're authorized to read. Don't use these techniques to evade logins, paywalls, or access controls.
Step 1 — Diagnose: transient failure or real block?
Don't escalate to a browser on a flaky network error. Look at what you actually got back:
| Signal | Likely cause | Action |
|---|---|---|
Proxy 590 / UPSTREAM504, connection reset, timeout |
Transient proxy/CONNECT failure | Retry with a fresh proxy IP. Not a block. |
| Intermittent 503, then works | Rate limit / load | Backoff, slow down. |
| Consistent 403 on first request | TLS/fingerprint block | Escalate one rung (TLS spoof). |
<title>Just a moment...</title>, Turnstile widget |
Cloudflare JS challenge | Stealth browser + Turnstile click. |
| DataDome/PerimeterX/Akamai CAPTCHA or interstitial | Cookie/JS challenge | Stealth browser + homepage warmup. |
| 200 OK but body is a tiny shell with no data | Client-side render or cookie-gated SSR | Warmup, or intercept the XHR. |
Collapsing to the 6×-cost browser tier on a transient 504 is the most common waste. Confirm the failure is consistent before escalating.
Step 2 — Climb the technique ladder (cheapest first)
Each rung costs roughly 5–50× more than the one below. Stop at the first that works.
Rung 1 — Plain HTTP
httpx / requests. Works for APIs, RSS, JSON-LD, and server-rendered HTML. Near-zero cost, no proxy needed for most. Always your first attempt.
Rung 2 — HTTP + TLS fingerprint spoof
Many sites 403 your request before you send a single byte of HTML — they reject the TLS/JA3 fingerprint of a Python client. Spoof Chrome's TLS handshake at the socket level with no browser:
from impit import AsyncClient
client = AsyncClient(browser="chrome") # note: proxy= , not proxy_url=
resp = await client.get(url)
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 9d ago First seen · 130 lines · 216 tokens per session scan A 4d4aada2c69a
anti-bot-scraping is a skill published in the GitHub repository thirdwatch-dev/scraping-skills (3 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 216 tokens to every session and 2,376 once invoked, about $0.0011 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.
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