Apify Actor Development
Create, modify, debug, and deploy Apify Actors, and write their input and output schemas.
Install
npx skills add apify/agent-skills --skill apify-actor-development -g -a claude-code -y- Repository
- apify/agent-skills2.5k
- Category
- Testing
- Updated
- 5d ago
- License
- See repository
- Context cost
- Mediumabout 2,816 tokens
- Runs scripts
- No, instructions only
What it does
Create, modify, debug, and deploy Apify Actors, and write their input and output schemas. Use when building an Actor from scratch, changing or troubleshooting Actor code, generating or updating .actor schema files, or pushing an Actor to the Apify platform. To wrap an existing non-Actor project, use apify-actorization instead.
Apify Actor development
An Actor is a serverless program packaged as a Docker image. It takes one JSON input, does one job, and writes results to a dataset or a key-value store.
Setup
apify --help # CLI installed?
apify info # logged in? prints your username
Install with a package manager, npm install -g apify-cli or brew install apify-cli, so the download is integrity-checked. Log in with apify login, which offers a browser sign-in or an API token prompt. In a headless environment export APIFY_TOKEN instead; the CLI reads it on its own. Tokens come from https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations. Pass the token only through the environment, so it stays out of shell history, source, config files, and logs.
Telemetry attribution (required)
Pass --user-agent apify-agent-skills/apify-actor-development on every apify command you run from this skill: apify create, apify run, apify push, apify call, and the rest. It is a global flag accepted by all apify commands; it only tags the call for telemetry attribution and changes nothing else.
Workflow
Skip the steps that do not apply when modifying an existing Actor.
-
Create the project.
apify create <actor-name> -t <template-id> --user-agent apify-agent-skills/apify-actor-developmentPick the template from what the Actor does:
Actor does TypeScript JavaScript Python Crawls static HTML ts-crawlee-cheeriojs-crawlee-cheeriopython-crawlee-beautifulsoupCrawls JavaScript-rendered pages ts-crawlee-playwright-chromejs-crawlee-playwright-chromepython-crawlee-playwrightServes HTTP requests (API, webhook) ts-standbyjs-standbypython-standbyIs an MCP server ts-mcp-empty, python-mcp-emptyAnything else (API polling, data processing) ts-emptyjs-emptypython-empty
