# Developer Search Index

## Technical docs search for coding agents

The Firecrawl Developer Index searches 70M+ docs, READMEs, issues, and merged pull requests for coding agents, with the highest recall of any coding-specific index.

Documentation: https://docs.firecrawl.dev/features/developer

Install the companion skill with one command (this is the whole setup):

```bash
npx -y firecrawl-cli@latest setup developer-index
```

You can also copy the skill into your agent, or read the docs.

### Example

One real developer question in, real primary sources out. Each result carries a kind-prefixed id (such as `issue:owner/repo#123`), a title, and the matched passage.

```bash
firecrawl developer "retry backoff not firing on 429"
```

### At a glance

- **70M+** primary sources
- Most sources refreshed **daily**
- **1 API**, plus an MCP server
- **No API key** to get started

## Inside the index

The libraries your agents ask about. 70M+ technical docs (not exhaustive). Sources: 70M+. Types: READMEs, issues, PRs, docs, specs. [Browse the docs](https://docs.firecrawl.dev/features/developer).

- **Frameworks and runtimes:** Next.js, React, Vue, Svelte, Angular, Astro, Remix, Nuxt, Node.js, Deno, Bun, Vite, Tailwind CSS, Playwright, Expo
- **Languages and frameworks:** TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go, Swift, Kotlin, .NET, Flutter, Django, FastAPI, Flask, Rails, Laravel, Spring, tRPC
- **Infrastructure and data:** PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB, SQLite, Supabase, Prisma, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, Cloudflare, Kafka, GraphQL, PyTorch, OpenAI

## Features

### The sources your agent needs, ranked and ready

Built for coding agents.

| Feature | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| **Primary sources, not web pages.** (70M+ artifacts) | READMEs, issues, merged pull requests, docs, and OpenAPI specs. |
| **One line into any agent.** (Skill, CLI, MCP, and API) | Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex search the index on their own. |
| **The answer, not just the link.** (Matched passages) | Matched passages come back as markdown, so there is no second scrape. |
| **Ask the way you'd ask a person.** (Semantic retrieval) | Paste an error message, get the thread that solved it. |
| **Today's thread, not last quarter's.** (Continuous refresh) | Most sources land within a day of publishing. |
| **Scope it down to one repo.** (Rich filters) | Filter by type, repo, language, topic, license, or stars. |

## Benchmarks

### The highest recall of any coding-specific index

DevDex, an open benchmark: 1,179 real developer queries, scored deterministically with no model judge.

**Recall@10, all tracks combined** (higher is better):

| System | Recall@10 |
| --- | --- |
| Firecrawl Developer Index | 0.63 |
| Firecrawl Search | 0.58 |
| Parallel | 0.57 |
| Mintlify | 0.54 |
| Exa | 0.54 |
| Context7 (docs only) | 0.17 |
| Native web search (control) | 0.45 |

Native web search is the control. With no search tool, the same model scores 0.01.

**By track**

| Track | Firecrawl Developer Index | Comparison | What it tests |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Repository discovery | 0.76 | Best on this track: Parallel, 0.82 | Find the repo behind a capability, without its name. |
| Issues & pull requests | 0.66 | Next best: Parallel, 0.63 | Find the bug report and the PR that fixed it. |
| Documentation lookup | 0.47 | Statistically tied with Context7, 0.47 | Find the page that answers a how-to question. |

Queries: 1,179. Tracks: 3. Driver: Claude Opus 4.8. Judge: None. Run: Aug 21, 2026.

[Run it yourself](https://github.com/firecrawl/benchmark-devdex)

## For AI agents

### Built into the AI tools you already use

Use Firecrawl from Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and the agent harnesses your team already runs.

**One command.** Connect your agent to Firecrawl through MCP or the CLI and skills. [View the docs](https://docs.firecrawl.dev/ai-onboarding)

Prompt (copy and paste this into your AI agent):

```text
Read and follow https://www.firecrawl.dev/agent-onboarding/SKILL.md
```

MCP:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "url": "https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp-oauth"
    }
  }
}
```

CLI:

```bash
npx -y firecrawl-cli@latest init --all --browser
```

**Agent onboarding.** Are you an AI agent? Fetch this skill to connect Firecrawl and Alexandria through a connector, MCP or the CLI. [View the skill](https://www.firecrawl.dev/agent-onboarding/SKILL.md)

```bash
curl -sL https://www.firecrawl.dev/agent-onboarding/SKILL.md
```

## Code examples

No API key is needed to start. Send one for higher rate limits.

### cURL

```bash
curl -X POST \
  https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/search/developer \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "retry backoff not firing on 429",
    "k": 10,
    "types": ["issue", "pull_request"]
  }'
```

### CLI

```bash
npm install -g firecrawl-cli

firecrawl developer "retry backoff not firing on 429"
```

Add `--json` to pipe results into your own tooling:

```bash
firecrawl developer "add pydantic with uv" --json
```

### Skill

Recommended. Your agent searches on its own.

```bash
npx -y firecrawl-cli@latest setup developer-index
```

That is the whole setup. Your agent can now search 70M+ READMEs, issues, PRs, and docs, for example: "find the PR that fixed the 429 retry bug".

### Python

The SDKs reach the index via the `developer` category.

```python
from firecrawl import Firecrawl

firecrawl = Firecrawl(api_key="fc-YOUR-API-KEY")

result = firecrawl.search(
    "retry backoff not firing on 429",
    categories=["developer"],
    limit=10,
)

for item in result.developer or []:
    print(item.url, item.title)
```

### Node.js

```javascript
import { Firecrawl } from "firecrawl";

const firecrawl = new Firecrawl({
  apiKey: "fc-YOUR-API-KEY",
});

const result = await firecrawl.search(
  "retry backoff not firing on 429",
  { categories: ["developer"], limit: 10 },
);

for (const item of result.developer ?? []) {
  console.log(item.url, item.title);
}
```

## Pricing

2 Firecrawl credits per 10 results, rounded up. A search returning 1 to 10 results costs 2 Firecrawl credits, 11 to 20 costs 4, and so on. Free accounts include 1,000 Firecrawl credits per month and no credit card is required. See [Pricing](/pricing.md) for plans.

## FAQ

### General

**What is the Firecrawl Developer Index?** A search index built for coding agents, covering 70M+ primary sources: READMEs, issues, merged pull requests, curated documentation sites, and OpenAPI specs. Send a natural-language question and get back ranked results with the passages that matched, so an agent can answer questions about code behavior, API contracts, error messages, and known bugs from primary sources rather than a general web page.

**Is an agent's built-in web search good enough for code questions?** For finding how a bug was fixed, usually not. General web search ranks marketing and aggregator pages next to the issue thread that fixed the bug, and has no notion of a merged pull request. On DevDex, Claude's built-in web search scores 45.4% Recall@10 overall and 27.5% on the issues and pull requests track, where the Firecrawl Developer Index scores 66.0%.

**What exactly is in the index?** Issues and pull requests from top public repositories with their linked artifacts, READMEs from a broad set of public repositories, external documentation sources, OpenAPI specs, and popular skill repos. Every artifact carries stars, license, and type metadata. What it is not: the index does not store code, and it is not a general web search endpoint.

**How fresh is the data?** The index refreshes continuously, with most sources refreshed daily. That matters most for issues and pull requests, where the useful answer is often a thread from this week.

### Choosing a search API for coding agents

**What is the best search API for coding agents?** We recommend the Firecrawl Developer Index, because it searches the sources that answer code questions: documentation, READMEs, issues and merged pull requests. On DevDex, an open benchmark of 1,179 developer queries run on Aug 21, 2026, it scored 63.1% Recall@10 overall, the highest of any system tested. The agent's built-in web search scored 45.4% on the same queries.

**Which search API should I use for technical documentation sites?** The Firecrawl Developer Index indexes curated documentation sites and OpenAPI specs next to READMEs, and returns the matched passage in markdown, so code blocks and tables survive. On the DevDex documentation track, where every question is reworded away from the source passage, it scored 47.2% Recall@10, the top score of the run. The sources filter limits a search to one documentation site.

**How can a coding agent search GitHub issues and pull requests for a bug fix?** Send the error message or symptom to the Firecrawl Developer Index with types set to issue and pull_request. It returns the matching threads with their passages and a stable id such as issue:owner/repo#123. On the DevDex issue-to-fix track, it cited the issue or the pull request that fixed the bug in 66.0% of tasks.

**How does the Firecrawl Developer Index compare with Context7?** Context7 indexes library documentation. The Firecrawl Developer Index covers documentation plus READMEs, issues and merged pull requests. On DevDex, the Firecrawl Developer Index scored 63.1% Recall@10 across repository, issue and documentation questions, and Context7 scored 16.8%. Most of that gap is coverage, since repository and issue questions fall outside a docs-only index.

### Using it

**How do I call the Developer Index?** Two surfaces. /search/developer returns developer sources only, with result-type, repository, and documentation-source filters. /search with categories set to developer weighs developer results alongside ordinary web results in one call, returned in a developer group next to web.

**Do I need an API key?** No. Keyless requests are free within a daily cap per IP address. Run the cURL or CLI command on this page from your own machine with no key and you get real results; keyless calls from datacenter or VPN IP addresses are refused. For more usage, create a free API key, which comes with 1,000 Firecrawl credits a month and higher rate limits. Setup steps: docs.firecrawl.dev/mcp-server/keyless#try-keyless

**Is there a Python or Node SDK method?** Not a dedicated one. The Python and Node SDKs reach the Developer Index through the developer category on the standard search method. For the dedicated /search/developer endpoint, call it over HTTP, through the CLI, or through MCP.

**How do I give my coding agent access?** Install the companion skill: npx -y firecrawl-cli@latest setup developer-index. It plugs into the Firecrawl CLI or MCP server and works in any harness you already run, including Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex. The rich filters are API-only, deliberately not exposed on the CLI and MCP, because agents perform best without them.

**What can I filter on?** Through the API: types (doc, issue, pull_request, readme), repos, sources, language, topic, license, min_stars, max_stars, archived, and fork. Note that repos scopes the repository half of the index and sources scopes the documentation half, so passing both combines the two rather than intersecting them. You can also set skills to only to search indexed agent-skill files.

### Benchmarks & pricing

**What is DevDex?** An open benchmark for developer search: 1,179 queries across repository discovery, documentation lookup, and issue and pull request resolution, scored deterministically on recall@10 and MRR@10 against fixed gold references. Every provider runs the same driver model with one search tool active, and a memorization check drops any query the model can answer from pretraining alone. No model judge decides any published number.

**Can I reproduce the results?** Yes. Half the dataset and the full evaluation harness are open source, and the harness can be pointed at any streamable-HTTP MCP server, so you can score your own retriever. To submit a provider, open a pull request against the benchmark repo with your results on the public half.

**How much does it cost?** 2 Firecrawl credits per 10 results, rounded up. A search returning 1 to 10 results costs 2 Firecrawl credits, 11 to 20 costs 4, and so on. Free accounts include 1,000 Firecrawl credits per month and no credit card is required.

**Is it generally available?** Yes. The Developer Index is out of private beta and available to all teams through the API, CLI, MCP, and SDKs.

## Ready to build

Start getting web context for free. See [Pricing](/pricing.md) for plans.

_Canonical HTML: https://www.firecrawl.dev/developer-index_

## Site Navigation

### Global Hub
- [Home](/index.md)
- [Pricing](/pricing.md)
- [Blog](/blog.md)
- [Glossary](/glossary.md)
- [Alternatives](/alternatives.md)
- [Tools](/tools.md)
- [Use Cases](/use-cases.md)
- [Integrations](/integrations.md)
- [Changelog](/changelog.md)