Browserbase Fetch API

Fetch a page and return its content, headers, and metadata — no browser session required.

Prerequisites

Get your API key from: https://browserbase.com/settings

export BROWSERBASE_API_KEY="your_api_key"

When to Use Fetch vs Browser

Use Case	Fetch API	Browser Skill
Static page content	Yes	Overkill
Check HTTP status/headers	Yes	No
JavaScript-rendered pages	No	Yes
Form interactions	No	Yes
Page behind bot detection	Possible (with proxies)	Yes (stealth mode)
Simple scraping	Yes	Overkill
Speed	Fast	Slower

Rule of thumb: Use Fetch for simple HTTP requests where you don't need JavaScript execution. Use the Browser skill when you need to interact with or render the page.

Using with cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.browserbase.com/v1/fetch" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-BB-API-Key: $BROWSERBASE_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com"}'

Request Options

Field	Type	Default	Description
url	string (URI)	required	The URL to fetch
allowRedirects	boolean	false	Whether to follow HTTP redirects
allowInsecureSsl	boolean	false	Whether to bypass TLS certificate verification
proxies	boolean	false	Whether to enable proxy support

Response

Returns JSON with:

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Unique identifier for the fetch request
statusCode	integer	HTTP status code of the fetched response
headers	object	Response headers as key-value pairs
content	string	The response body content
contentType	string	The MIME type of the response
encoding	string	The character encoding of the response

Using with the SDK

Node.js (TypeScript)

npm install @browserbasehq/sdk

import { Browserbase } from "@browserbasehq/sdk";

const bb = new Browserbase({ apiKey: process.env.BROWSERBASE_API_KEY });

const response = await bb.fetchAPI.create({
  url: "https://example.com",
  allowRedirects: true,
});

console.log(response.statusCode);   // 200
console.log(response.content);      // page HTML
console.log(response.headers);      // response headers

Python

pip install browserbase

from browserbase import Browserbase
import os

bb = Browserbase(api_key=os.environ["BROWSERBASE_API_KEY"])

response = bb.fetch_api.create(
    url="https://example.com",
    allow_redirects=True,
)

print(response.status_code)  # 200
print(response.content)      # page HTML
print(response.headers)      # response headers

Common Options

Follow redirects

curl -X POST "https://api.browserbase.com/v1/fetch" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-BB-API-Key: $BROWSERBASE_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com/redirect", "allowRedirects": true}'

Enable proxies

curl -X POST "https://api.browserbase.com/v1/fetch" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-BB-API-Key: $BROWSERBASE_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com", "proxies": true}'

Bypass TLS verification

curl -X POST "https://api.browserbase.com/v1/fetch" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-BB-API-Key: $BROWSERBASE_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"url": "https://self-signed.example.com", "allowInsecureSsl": true}'

Error Handling

Status	Meaning
400	Invalid request body (check URL format and parameters)
429	Concurrent fetch request limit exceeded (retry later)
502	Response too large or TLS certificate verification failed
504	Fetch request timed out (default timeout: 60 seconds)

Best Practices

1. Start with Fetch for simple page retrieval — it's faster and cheaper than a browser session
2. Enable allowRedirects when fetching URLs that may redirect (shortened URLs, login flows)
3. Use proxies when the target site has IP-based rate limiting or geo-restrictions
4. Check statusCode before processing content to handle errors gracefully
5. Fall back to Browser if Fetch returns empty content (page requires JavaScript rendering)

For detailed examples, see EXAMPLES.md. For API reference, see REFERENCE.md.