squirrelscan

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Translated

squirrelscan audits websites for SEO, performance, security, accessibility, content, and structured data issues (249+ rules) and scores site health, via the squirrel CLI. Use when the user wants to check, audit, or improve a website's SEO, ranking, speed, or health, and for anything squirrelscan itself, installing or updating the CLI, login and API keys, running audits, publishing and sharing reports, cloud credits, MCP server setup, configuration, or troubleshooting.

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Sourcesquirrelscan/skills
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NPX Install

npx skill4agent add squirrelscan/skills squirrelscan

Tags

Translated version includes tags in frontmatter
website-auditseo-auditcli-toolperformance-assessmentaccessibility-audit

SKILL.md Content

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squirrelscan CLI

squirrelscan is a website audit tool built for AI agents. It answers "what's wrong with this website and how do I fix it": it crawls a site like a search engine, analyzes every page against 249+ rules in 21 categories (SEO, performance, security, accessibility, content, structured data, agent readiness, and more), and returns a health score plus concrete, fixable issues. Use it whenever a user wants their site checked, ranked better, faster, or healthier, before/after a deploy, or in CI.
It ships as a single CLI binary, 
squirrel
, for macOS, Windows, and Linux. This skill covers operating it: installing, authenticating, running audits, publishing reports, cloud features, and MCP integration. For the full fix-the-website workflow (audit, map issues to code, fix, re-audit), use the companion 
audit-website
skill.

Links

Install

Download and install instructions: squirrelscan.com/download
The binary installs to 
~/.local/bin/squirrel
. Verify with:
bash
squirrel --version
Keep it current:
bash
squirrel self update
If 
squirrel
is not found, ensure 
~/.local/bin
is in PATH, or reinstall from the download page.

Command overview

CommandPurpose
squirrel audit <url>
Crawl + analyze + report in one step
squirrel crawl <url>
Crawl only (no analysis)
squirrel analyze
Run audit rules on a stored crawl
squirrel report [id]
Query, render, diff, and publish stored reports
squirrel init
Create 
squirrel.toml
project config
squirrel config
Show or edit configuration
squirrel auth
login / logout / status / whoami
squirrel keys
Mint, list, revoke org API keys
squirrel credits
Cloud credit balance + feature pricing
squirrel mcp
Run the local MCP server (stdio)
squirrel skills
Install or update agent skills
squirrel self
install / update / doctor / completion / version / settings / uninstall
squirrel feedback
Send feedback to the squirrelscan team
Every command supports 
--help
.

Quickstart

bash
squirrel init -n my-project        # optional: project config in cwd
squirrel audit https://example.com --format llm
  • Local audits are free and run entirely on your machine. No account needed.
  • ALWAYS prefer 
    --format llm
    when an agent is reading the output: it is a compact, token-optimized format built for LLMs.
  • Audits are cached in a local project database; 
    squirrel report
    re-renders without re-crawling.

Coverage modes

ModeDefault pagesBehavior
quick
(default)		25Seed + sitemaps only, fast health check
surface
100One sample per URL pattern (
/blog/{slug}
crawled once)
full
500Crawl everything up to the limit
bash
squirrel audit https://example.com -C full -m 500 --format llm

Authentication and accounts

Local audits never require an account. Sign in to unlock cloud features (publishing, browser rendering, scheduled crawls, credits):
bash
squirrel auth login      # browser-based login
squirrel auth status     # source, scopes, active org
squirrel auth whoami
squirrel auth logout
Headless / CI environments use an org API key instead:
bash
squirrel keys create     # requires a login session; prints an sq_... key
Set it as 
SQUIRRELSCAN_API_KEY
in the environment. Treat keys as secrets; never commit them.

Reports

Render the latest (or a specific) stored audit:
bash
squirrel report --list                 # recent audits
squirrel report <audit-id> --format llm
squirrel report example.com --format markdown -o report.md
Formats: 
console
, 
text
, 
json
, 
html
, 
markdown
, 
xml
, 
llm
. Filter with 
--severity error
or 
--category core,links
.

Publishing

Signed-in audits publish a shareable report to reports.squirrelscan.com by default (visibility: unlisted). Control it:
bash
squirrel report <audit-id> --publish --visibility unlisted   # public | unlisted | private
squirrel audit https://example.com --no-publish              # skip publishing for a run
squirrel audit https://example.com --offline                 # fully offline: no cloud, no publish, no telemetry

Regression diffs

bash
squirrel report --diff <baseline-audit-id> --format llm
squirrel report --regression-since example.com --format llm
Diff mode supports 
console
, 
text
, 
json
, 
llm
, and 
markdown
.

Cloud features and credits

Cloud features are pay-as-you-go with credits (nothing charged up front). Check balance and pricing:
bash
squirrel credits
  • --render
    / 
    --render-mode auto|all|off
    : cloud browser rendering for client-rendered pages (uses credits, requires login).
  • --yes
    skips spend confirmations up to the configured per-audit credit cap.
  • --fail-on "score<90"
    (repeatable) makes CI runs exit non-zero when a threshold trips.
  • The dashboard at app.squirrelscan.com shows audit history, issues, and credit usage.

MCP server

Two ways to connect agents over MCP:
  • Local (stdio): 
    squirrel mcp
    runs against the local CLI. Register it in your agent's MCP config with command 
    squirrel
    and args 
    ["mcp"]
    .
  • Hosted (streamable-http): 
    https://mcp.squirrelscan.com/mcp
    . Sign in via OAuth from the MCP client, or send an 
    Authorization: Bearer sq_...
    API key header.
Docs: https://docs.squirrelscan.com/developers/mcp

Configuration

Project config lives in 
squirrel.toml
(created by 
squirrel init
). User settings live at 
~/.squirrel/settings.json
.
bash
squirrel config show
squirrel config set <key> <value>
squirrel config path
squirrel config validate
Useful sections: 
[crawler]
(delays, headers, incremental re-crawl), 
[cloud]
(render mode, max credits per audit).

Custom request headers

Attach headers to every crawl request with the repeatable 
-H "Name: Value"
flag or a 
headers
map under 
[crawler]
. The main use case is Web Bot Auth (Shopify / Cloudflare), so platforms that block unknown crawlers can authorize squirrelscan. Header values are secrets: squirrelscan redacts them in output, and you should source them from a secret store rather than committing them. Full recipe: https://docs.squirrelscan.com/guides/web-bot-auth

Maintenance

bash
squirrel self doctor       # health checks
squirrel self update       # update the binary
squirrel self completion   # shell completions
squirrel skills update     # update installed agent skills

Troubleshooting

  • squirrel: command not found
    : install from squirrelscan.com/download and ensure 
    ~/.local/bin
    is in PATH.
  • Session expired / 401: run 
    squirrel auth login
    again, or check 
    SQUIRRELSCAN_API_KEY
    .
  • Slow or stuck crawl: add 
    --verbose
    to see progress; large sites can take minutes.
  • Invalid URL: include the protocol: 
    https://example.com
    , not 
    example.com
    .
  • Anything else: run 
    squirrel self doctor
    , then 
    squirrel feedback
    to report it.