Firecrawl Enterprise RBAC

Overview

Control access to Firecrawl scraping resources through API key management, domain allowlists, and credit budgets per team. Firecrawl's credit-based pricing means access control is primarily about limiting credit consumption and restricting scrape targets per consumer.

Prerequisites

• Firecrawl Team or Scale plan
• Dashboard access at firecrawl.dev/app
• Understanding of credit-per-page billing

Instructions

Step 1: Separate API Keys per Consumer

set -euo pipefail
# Create dedicated keys at firecrawl.dev/app for each team/service

# Content indexing pipeline — high volume
# Key: fc-content-indexer-prod (monthly credit limit: 50,000)

# Sales team prospect research — scrape only
# Key: fc-sales-research (monthly credit limit: 5,000)

# Dev/testing — minimal
# Key: fc-dev-testing (monthly credit limit: 500)

Step 2: Gateway Proxy with Domain Allowlists

import FirecrawlApp from "@mendable/firecrawl-js";

const TEAM_POLICIES: Record<string, {
  apiKey: string;
  allowedDomains: string[];
  maxPagesPerCrawl: number;
  dailyCreditLimit: number;
}> = {
  "content-team": {
    apiKey: process.env.FIRECRAWL_KEY_CONTENT!,
    allowedDomains: ["docs.*", "*.readthedocs.io", "medium.com"],
    maxPagesPerCrawl: 200,
    dailyCreditLimit: 2000,
  },
  "sales-team": {
    apiKey: process.env.FIRECRAWL_KEY_SALES!,
    allowedDomains: ["linkedin.com", "crunchbase.com", "g2.com"],
    maxPagesPerCrawl: 20,
    dailyCreditLimit: 500,
  },
  "engineering": {
    apiKey: process.env.FIRECRAWL_KEY_ENGINEERING!,
    allowedDomains: ["*"],  // unrestricted
    maxPagesPerCrawl: 100,
    dailyCreditLimit: 1000,
  },
};

function isDomainAllowed(team: string, url: string): boolean {
  const policy = TEAM_POLICIES[team];
  if (!policy) return false;
  const domain = new URL(url).hostname;
  return policy.allowedDomains.some(pattern =>
    pattern === "*" || domain.endsWith(pattern.replace("*.", "").replace("*", ""))
  );
}

function getTeamClient(team: string): FirecrawlApp {
  const policy = TEAM_POLICIES[team];
  if (!policy) throw new Error(`Unknown team: ${team}`);
  return new FirecrawlApp({ apiKey: policy.apiKey });
}

Step 3: Credit Budget Enforcement

class TeamBudget {
  private usage = new Map<string, Map<string, number>>(); // team -> date -> credits

  record(team: string, credits: number) {
    const today = new Date().toISOString().split("T")[0];
    if (!this.usage.has(team)) this.usage.set(team, new Map());
    const teamUsage = this.usage.get(team)!;
    teamUsage.set(today, (teamUsage.get(today) || 0) + credits);
  }

  canAfford(team: string, credits: number): boolean {
    const policy = TEAM_POLICIES[team];
    if (!policy) return false;
    const today = new Date().toISOString().split("T")[0];
    const used = this.usage.get(team)?.get(today) || 0;
    return used + credits <= policy.dailyCreditLimit;
  }

  getUsage(team: string): number {
    const today = new Date().toISOString().split("T")[0];
    return this.usage.get(team)?.get(today) || 0;
  }
}

const budget = new TeamBudget();

Step 4: Policy-Enforced Scraping

export async function teamScrape(team: string, url: string) {
  // Check domain policy
  if (!isDomainAllowed(team, url)) {
    throw new Error(`Team "${team}" is not allowed to scrape ${new URL(url).hostname}`);
  }

  // Check credit budget
  if (!budget.canAfford(team, 1)) {
    throw new Error(`Team "${team}" has exceeded daily credit limit`);
  }

  // Scrape with team's API key
  const client = getTeamClient(team);
  const result = await client.scrapeUrl(url, {
    formats: ["markdown"],
    onlyMainContent: true,
  });

  budget.record(team, 1);
  return result;
}

export async function teamCrawl(team: string, url: string, pages: number) {
  const policy = TEAM_POLICIES[team];
  if (!policy) throw new Error(`Unknown team: ${team}`);

  if (!isDomainAllowed(team, url)) {
    throw new Error(`Domain not allowed for team "${team}"`);
  }

  const limit = Math.min(pages, policy.maxPagesPerCrawl);
  if (!budget.canAfford(team, limit)) {
    throw new Error(`Crawl of ${limit} pages exceeds "${team}" daily budget`);
  }

  const client = getTeamClient(team);
  const result = await client.crawlUrl(url, {
    limit,
    maxDepth: 3,
    scrapeOptions: { formats: ["markdown"] },
  });

  budget.record(team, result.data?.length || 0);
  return result;
}

Step 5: Key Rotation Schedule

set -euo pipefail
# Rotate keys quarterly:
# 1. Create new key at firecrawl.dev/app
# 2. Deploy new key alongside old (both valid)
# 3. Verify new key works
curl -s https://api.firecrawl.dev/v1/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NEW_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com","formats":["markdown"]}' | jq .success
# 4. Remove old key from all services
# 5. Delete old key in dashboard after 48-hour overlap

Error Handling

Examples

Audit Team Usage

for (const team of Object.keys(TEAM_POLICIES)) {
  console.log(`${team}: ${budget.getUsage(team)} credits today`);
}

Resources

• Firecrawl Dashboard
• Firecrawl Rate Limits
• Firecrawl Pricing

Next Steps

For migration strategies, see firecrawl-migration-deep-dive.