CLI Reference

All commands available in the archiveinator command-line interface.

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archiveinator archive

Archive a web page to a self-contained HTML file.

archiveinator archive <url>

Options

Flag	Short	Description
--output-dir PATH	-o	Directory to save the archive (overrides config)
--stdout	-s	Write HTML to stdout; status messages go to stderr
--json	-j	Output JSON metadata to stdout
--verbose	-v	Show pipeline step messages and paywall bypass attempts
--stealth		Force stealth browser mode (anti-fingerprinting)
--cookies-file PATH	-c	JSON file containing cookies for authentication
--timeout SECONDS	-t	Page load timeout in seconds (overrides config)
--no-netblock		Disable network-level ad blocking for this run
--no-dom-cleanup		Disable DOM ad node removal for this run

--stdout and --output-dir are mutually exclusive.

Cookie Formats

Cookie files can be in any of these formats (auto-detected):

• Cookie-Editor: { "cookies": [...] }
• EditThisCookie: [...]
• Playwright storage state: Full storage state JSON

Examples

# Basic archive
archiveinator archive https://example.com/article

# Save to a specific directory
archiveinator archive https://example.com/article -o ~/archives

# Verbose mode — see pipeline progress
archiveinator archive https://example.com/article -v

# With authentication cookies
archiveinator archive https://example.com/private -c cookies.json

# Force stealth browser (anti-fingerprinting)
archiveinator archive https://example.com/article --stealth

# Skip ad blocking for this run (useful when debugging)
archiveinator archive https://example.com/article --no-netblock --no-dom-cleanup

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archiveinator setup

Install required dependencies and create default configuration.

archiveinator setup

This installs:

1. Playwright Chromium — headless browser for page loading
2. Patchright Chromium — CDP-patched Chromium for PerimeterX/DataDome bypass
3. Camoufox Firefox — patched Firefox for Cloudflare/fingerprint bypass
4. monolith binary — for asset inlining (self-contained HTML)
5. EasyList + EasyPrivacy — ad-blocking rule sets for network filtering
6. Default config file — at the platform-appropriate path

Re-run archiveinator setup after upgrading to refresh the monolith binary and blocklists.

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archiveinator login

Launch an interactive browser to capture authentication cookies.

archiveinator login <url>

Options

Flag	Short	Description
--output PATH	-o	Path to save the cookies JSON file (default: cookies.json)
--headless		Run browser in headless mode (no visible window)
--timeout SECONDS		Timeout before auto-closing the browser
--full-storage		Save full Playwright storage state (cookies + localStorage) instead of just cookies

Examples

# Basic: opens browser, log in manually, close to save
archiveinator login https://example.com

# Headless with timeout (useful for automated flows)
archiveinator login https://example.com --headless --timeout 60

# Save full storage state
archiveinator login https://example.com --full-storage -o state.json

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archiveinator serve

Start the web UI server.

archiveinator serve

Options

Flag	Description
--host HOST	Bind address (default: 0.0.0.0 for Docker, 127.0.0.1 for local)
--port PORT	Port (default: 8080)
--dev	Enable auto-reload, debug templates, and verbose logging

Examples

# Start on default port
archiveinator serve

# Custom host and port
archiveinator serve --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080

# Development mode
archiveinator serve --dev

See the Web UI Guide for full documentation.

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archiveinator ladder

Start a Ladder HTTP proxy for paywall bypass research.

archiveinator ladder

Automatically pulls the Ladder Docker image and starts it on localhost:8181. Useful when investigating a new paywalled site — iterate on header/referrer combos with a quick curl instead of running the full Playwright pipeline each time. Requires Docker.

Options

Flag	Short	Description
--port PORT	-p	Local port to bind Ladder to (default: 8181)
--rules PATH	-r	Directory of YAML rule files (default: {config_dir}/ladder-rules/)

Endpoints

Once running, Ladder exposes three endpoints:

Endpoint	Returns
http://localhost:8181/<url>	Proxied HTML page
http://localhost:8181/api/<url>	JSON { body, headers }
http://localhost:8181/raw/<url>	Raw HTML string

Ladder defaults to Googlebot UA + X-Forwarded-For: 66.249.66.1 for all requests.

YAML Rules

Drop .yaml files into the rules directory to apply per-site header overrides:

# ~/.config/archiveinator/ladder-rules/nytimes.yaml
domains:
  - nytimes.com
rules:
  user_agent: "Mozilla/5.0 ..."
  referer: "https://news.google.com/"
  headers:
    X-Forwarded-For: "66.249.66.1"

Examples

# Start with defaults
archiveinator ladder

# Test a URL through the proxy
curl http://localhost:8181/https://nytimes.com

# Get JSON with body + response headers
curl http://localhost:8181/api/https://nytimes.com | jq '.body' | wc -w

# Custom port
archiveinator ladder --port 9090

# Custom rules directory
archiveinator ladder --rules ~/my-ladder-rules/

Press Ctrl+C to stop and remove the container.

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archiveinator update-blocklists

Download the latest ad-blocking rule sets.

archiveinator update-blocklists

Fetches the latest EasyList and EasyPrivacy rules. Also runs automatically on a schedule via CI (every Monday at 03:00 UTC) if you fork the repository.

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archiveinator cache

Manage the per-domain bypass strategy cache.

archiveinator cache list
archiveinator cache clear [--domain DOMAIN]

Subcommand	Description
cache list	Show all cached bypass strategies and their success counts
cache clear	Clear all cached entries
cache clear --domain DOMAIN	Clear the cached entry for one domain

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archiveinator --help

# General help
archiveinator --help

# Command-specific help
archiveinator archive --help
archiveinator ladder --help
archiveinator login --help
archiveinator serve --help