seo-crawl-render

Produces the PageSnapshot (v2) consumed by every module. The scripts fetch, parse, render, and persist; this skill decides which command to run and reads only its compact stdout summary. Claude Code's WebFetch returns a lossy model summary with no headers, status codes, or raw HTML and does not follow cross-host redirects — it is never the acquisition path.

Acquisition

• Single page or local path: node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/snapshot.mjs" <url|path> --out "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/runs" [--render auto|static|js] [--ua default|googlebot|bingbot|gptbot|oai-searchbot|claude-searchbot] [--renderer auto|chrome|playwright|none] [--rendered-file <dom.html>] [--max-bytes 5000000] [--json] — a non-default --ua writes pages/<slug>.ua-<preset>.json.
• Multi-page: node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/crawl.mjs" <url> [--pages 12] [--max 40] [--per-template 2] [--depth 3] --out "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/runs" — homepage + target always, then at most --per-template pages per detected template, robots respected; every skip is logged in crawl.json.sampling. Also takes --concurrency, --delay, --include/--exclude, --seeds, --sitemap-sample, --link-status and --no-robots.
• Read the stdout summary only (run dir, slugs, counts, render verdict, warnings). Never paste HTML into the conversation — modules Read pages/<slug>.json and Grep pages/<slug>.html.
• Local directories are read as built HTML (status: null, empty headers). Framework source with no built output exits 2: build first or give the deployed URL.

Render decision (lives in the script)

--render auto marks a render as needed on word count <150, hydration markers (__NEXT_DATA__, __NUXT_DATA__, self.__next_f, empty #app/#__next root) on a still-thin page, no h1 with <3 anchors, or a <noscript> JS notice. --render static never renders; --render js always tries. The default differs by entry point: snapshot.mjs defaults to auto, while crawl.mjs and audit.mjs default to static — a headless or multi-page run never launches a browser unless it is asked to.

• --renderer auto (the default) auto-detects headless Chrome/Chromium/Edge/Brave ($CLAUDE_SEO_AI_CHROME → $CHROME_PATH → $PUPPETEER_EXECUTABLE_PATH → PATH → default app paths → Playwright caches); --renderer playwright is opt-in and used only when already installed — never auto-installed; --renderer none disables rendering entirely; --rendered-file <html> accepts a DOM captured by a Playwright/Firecrawl MCP or by the user.
• When render.needed && render.used === "none": the snapshot carries confidence: reduced and render.hint; emit M4.render.not_rendered as needs_api (severity 3, axis both, fixable: advisory) quoting the hint ("install Chrome, or pass --rendered-file from a render MCP"). Never pretend to have seen rendered content.

PageSnapshot v2 — <run_dir>/pages/<slug>.json

{ target: {kind: "url"|"path", value},  request: {ua, accept_language, timeout_ms},
  status_chain: [{url, status, location, ms}],  redirects: {http_to_https, host_changed, www_normalized, trailing_slash_changed, hops},
  headers: {…},                                   // final response; set-cookie → cookie names only
  robots_directives: {header, meta: [], effective},
  body: {bytes, truncated, charset, sha256},  timing: {ttfb_ms, download_ms},
  raw_html_path, rendered_html_path,              // files beside the JSON; rendered is null when not rendered
  render: {needed, signals: [], used: "chrome"|"playwright"|"external"|"none", confidence: "high"|"reduced", available: [], hint, delta},
  parsed: {…},  parsed_rendered: {…}|null,         // parseDocument(): title, metas, robots_meta, canonicals, hreflang, anchors, headings, images, scripts, jsonld, landmarks, markers, word_count, text_sample …
  site: {robots: "site/robots.json", sitemaps: "site/sitemaps.json", discovery: "site/discovery.json"},
  tier: 0|1|2 }

Site artifacts are built once per run: site/robots.json (parsed REP + per-bot verdicts), site/sitemaps.json (index BFS, gzip, lastmod stats) + site/sitemap-urls.txt, site/discovery.json (probes for /llms.txt, /llms-full.txt, /agents.md, /.well-known/ucp, /.well-known/ai-catalog.json, /sitemap_agentic_discovery.xml, /api/ucp/mcp, and http:// → HTTPS enforcement).

Tiers

• 0 — scripts: real status chain, headers, raw HTML, parsed document, site artifacts. Every audit reaches this; no render, no field data.
• 1 — plus a renderer and/or PSI: auto-detected headless Chrome or opt-in Playwright (or --rendered-file), and/or a PageSpeed Insights key for field CWV.
• 2 — plus account data: Search Console / Merchant Center access and a manual Search Console generative-AI export. Modules mark a finding needs_api when it requires a higher tier than the snapshot's tier — never a silent pass.