# Scrape any website into JSON by just listing the fields you want

> Source: <https://dev.to/tidytools/scrape-any-website-into-json-by-just-listing-the-fields-you-want-5bbi>
> Published: 2026-09-28 20:53:48+00:00

Writing a scraper usually means inspecting the page, finding CSS selectors, handling edge cases, and then fixing it all again when the site changes its layout. For a lot of jobs that's overkill: you just want *these five facts* from *these pages*.

So I built an extractor that works the other way around. You describe the data, an LLM reads the page, and you get JSON back.

```
{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://github.com/apify/crawlee" }],
  "fields": {
    "name": "string",
    "description": "string",
    "license": "string",
    "primary_language": "string"
  }
}
{
  "url": "https://github.com/apify/crawlee",
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "name": "crawlee",
    "description": "Crawlee—A web scraping and browser automation library for Node.js to build reliable crawlers...",
    "license": "Apache License 2.0",
    "primary_language": "JavaScript"
  }
}
```

No selectors, no code, and the same input works on any other repository page, or on a completely different site if you change the fields.

`null` otherwise. Missing is better than made up.`string`, `number`, `integer`, `boolean` or `array` per field, or a full JSON Schema for nested results like "all jobs on this page with title, location and remote flag".
If you need millions of pages from one site with a fixed layout, a classic selector-based scraper is cheaper. This tool shines when pages vary, layouts change, or you only need a handful of fields from many different sites.

[AI Web Data Extractor on Apify](https://apify.com/tidytools/ai-web-data-extractor). New Apify accounts get free monthly credit, so you can try it on your own URLs for free. It can also be called from code or used as a tool by AI agents through the Apify MCP server.

Feedback welcome, especially examples where it gets something wrong.