/firecrawl-parse

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,

firecrawl@firecrawl

GitHub

From plugin

firecrawl

18810 skills1 command

Install

$ npx -y skills add firecrawl/firecrawl-claude-plugin --skill firecrawl-parse --agent claude-code

How it fires

How this skill gets triggered: by you, by Claude, or both.

Fires itselfAuto-invocation. Claude auto-loads it when your prompt matches the work.
You can call itInvoke it directly when you want it.
Slash command/firecrawl-parse

Context preview

The summary Claude sees to decide when to auto-load this skill.

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,

SKILL.md

firecrawl-parse.SKILL.md

name: firecrawl-parse
description: |
  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.
allowed-tools:
  - Bash(firecrawl *)
  - Bash(npx firecrawl *)

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`.

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.

Other skills on firecrawl.

See all 10 skills in firecrawl