firecrawl-parse

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

Efficiently extract and convert the contents of any local file—such as PDF, DOCX, DOC, ODT, RTF, XLSX, XLS, or HTML—into clean, well-formatted markdown saved to disk. Use this skill whenever the user requests to parse, read, or extract information from a file on their computer, including phrases like “parse this PDF”, “convert this document”, “read this file”, “extract text from”, or when a local file path (not a URL) is provided. This skill offers advanced options like generating AI-powered summaries and answering questions based on the file's content. Prefer this tool over `scrape` when handling local files to deliver precise, structured outputs for downstream tasks.

472installs

Sourcefirecrawl/cli

Added on2026-04-28

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add firecrawl/cli firecrawl-parse

SKILL.md Content

View Translation Comparison →

firecrawl parse

Turn a local document into clean markdown on disk. Supports PDF, DOCX, DOC, ODT, RTF, XLSX, XLS, HTML/HTM/XHTML.

When to use

You have a file on disk (not a URL) and want its text as markdown
User drops a PDF/DOCX and asks what it says, or to summarize it
Use
```
scrape
```
instead when the source is a URL

Quick start

Always save to

.firecrawl/

with

-o

— parsed docs can be hundreds of KB and blow up context if streamed to stdout. Add

.firecrawl/

to

.gitignore

.

bash

mkdir -p .firecrawl

# File → markdown
firecrawl parse ./paper.pdf -o .firecrawl/paper.md

# AI summary
firecrawl parse ./paper.pdf -S -o .firecrawl/paper-summary.md

# Ask a question about the doc
firecrawl parse ./paper.pdf -Q "What are the main conclusions?" \
  -o .firecrawl/paper-qa.md

Then

head

,

grep

,

rg

etc., or incrementally read the file - don't load the whole thing at once.

Options

Option	Description
`-S, --summary`	AI-generated summary
`-Q, --query <prompt>`	Ask a question about the parsed content
`-o, --output <path>`	Output file path — always use this
`-f, --format <fmt>`	`markdown` (default), `html` , `summary`
`--timeout <ms>`	Timeout for the parse job
`--timing`	Show request duration

Tips

Quote paths with spaces:

firecrawl parse "./My Doc.pdf" -o .firecrawl/mydoc.md

.

Max upload size: 50 MB per file.
Credits: ~1 per PDF page; HTML is 1 flat.
Check
```
.firecrawl/
```
before re-parsing the same file.
To check your credit balance (recommended for batch processing and similar workflows), use the
```
firecrawl credit-usage
```
command.