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oaustegardoaustegard/claude-skills/fetching-blocked-urls/SKILL.md

fetching-blocked-urls

Skill158 starsChanged 8 months agoMITView on GitHub

Retrieve clean markdown from URLs when web_fetch fails. Converts pages via Jina AI reader service with automatic retry. Use when web_fetch or curl returns 403, blocked, paywall, timeout, JavaScript-rendering errors, or empty content or user explicitly suggests using jina.

The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

1 rule. About 0 are common, 1 is distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • ≈0

    Common · estimate

    Many files like this have a rule of this kind.

  • ≈1

    Distinctive · estimate

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 0

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Distinctive:

    Primary: Use web_fetch (native tool)

    line 43

≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 350,495 skill files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

Fetching Blocked URLs

Retrieve readable content from URLs that web_fetch cannot access. Jina AI's reader service renders JavaScript, bypasses soft blocks, and returns clean markdown.

Activation Triggers

Invoke this skill immediately when web_fetch returns:

  • 403 Forbidden or access denied
  • Paywall or login wall indicators
  • Empty, garbled, or truncated content
  • JavaScript-heavy SPA failures
  • Timeout errors

Core Command

curl -s --max-time 30 "https://r.jina.ai/TARGET_URL"

The service returns markdown with page title, body text, and preserved links.

Retry Pattern

Jina's backend has ~10% intermittent failures. Use retry logic to achieve 99%+ success:

for attempt in 1 2 3; do
  result=$(curl -s --max-time 30 "https://r.jina.ai/TARGET_URL" 2>&1)
  echo "$result" | grep -q "upstream connect error" || { echo "$result"; break; }
  [ $attempt -lt 3 ] && sleep 1
done

Workflow Integration

  1. Primary: Use web_fetch (native tool)
  2. Fallback: This skill with retry when web_fetch fails
  3. Escalate: Request user assistance only after retry exhaustion

Attempt this fallback before asking users to copy-paste content manually.

Output Format

Jina returns structured markdown:

  • Title: page title
  • URL Source: original URL
  • Markdown Content: extracted body text, links preserved

Limitations

  • Long pages may truncate
  • Sites blocking all scrapers remain inaccessible
  • Login-required content limited to public portions
  • Real-time dynamic content may not render

Domain Access

r.jina.ai is whitelisted in Claude container network configuration.

Download now (ZIP)

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