Facebook — Page / Profile Posts Scraper

Facebook page or profile URL → list of posts with full fields including media thumbnails, author profile pics, page ad library status, and flat reaction counts

Language

All process output to user (progress updates, process notifications) follows the user's language.

Objective

Extract posts from a public Facebook Page or personal Profile timeline, including post content, engagement counts, full reaction breakdown, media thumbnails, author profile picture, page ad library status, and text references (hashtags/links).

Prerequisites

• The target Facebook page or profile is open in the browser (e.g., https://www.facebook.com/cern)
• User is logged into Facebook (user avatar visible in the top right)

Pre-execution Checks

1. Tool Readiness

If browser-act has been confirmed available in the current session → skip this step.

Invoke browser-act via Skill tool to load usage. If installation or configuration issues arise, follow its guidance to resolve then retry.

2. Login Verification

If login status for Facebook has been confirmed in the current session → skip this step.

Otherwise: navigate to https://www.facebook.com and check:

• User avatar or name visible in top right → logged in, continue
• Login button visible → not logged in, inform the user and assist with login

User refuses or cannot log in → terminate execution.

Capability Components

This Skill's operational boundary = what the user can manually do in their browser. It only reads data already displayed to the user on the page, never bypassing authentication or access controls. JS code is encapsulated in Python files under the scripts/ directory, invoked via eval "$(python scripts/xxx.py {params})". $(...) is bash syntax; it is recommended to use the bash tool for execution.

API: Resolve Facebook page URL to numeric page ID

eval "$(python scripts/get-page-id.py '{page_url}')"

Parameters:

• page_url: Full Facebook page or profile URL, e.g. https://www.facebook.com/cern

Must run while the target page is open (or any Facebook page is open) so the browser has Facebook cookies.

Output example:

{
  "pageId": "100064792144187",
  "pageUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/cern"
}

Error handling: If pageId is not found (page not found or not logged in), verify login status and that the URL is a valid Facebook page.

API: Fetch posts from page/profile timeline

eval "$(python scripts/get-page-posts.py '{page_id}' --page-url '{page_url}' --cursor '{cursor}' --after-time {after_time} --before-time {before_time} --count {count})"

Parameters:

• page_id: Numeric Facebook page/profile ID (from get-page-id above)
• --page-url: Original input URL (used for facebookUrl, inputUrl, pageName fields); omit if not needed
• --cursor: Pagination cursor string from previous response pagination.endCursor; omit or pass null for first page
• --after-time: Unix timestamp (seconds); only return posts after this time; omit or pass null for no filter
• --before-time: Unix timestamp (seconds); only return posts before this time; omit or pass null for no filter
• --count: Number of posts per batch, default 5, max recommended 10

Output example:

{
  "posts": [
    {
      "facebookUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/cern",
      "postId": "1417704873732571",
      "pageName": "cern",
      "url": "https://www.facebook.com/cern/posts/pfbid0n87...",
      "time": "2026-05-22T14:30:18.000Z",
      "timestamp": 1779460218,
      "user": {
        "id": "100064792144187",
        "name": "CERN",
        "profileUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/cern",
        "profilePic": "https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-1/..."
      },
      "collaborators": [],
      "text": "Post text content here...",
      "textReferences": [
        { "type": "ExternalUrl", "url": "https://home.cern/...", "offset": 731, "length": 96 },
        { "type": "Hashtag", "url": "https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/espp", "offset": 296, "length": 5 }
      ],
      "link": "https://home.cern/...",
      "likes": 1285,
      "comments": 45,
      "shares": 125,
      "topReactions": [
        { "name": "Like", "count": 1167 },
        { "name": "Love", "count": 98 },
        { "name": "Care", "count": 9 },
        { "name": "Wow", "count": 8 },
        { "name": "Haha", "count": 1 },
        { "name": "Sad", "count": 1 },
        { "name": "Angry", "count": 1 }
      ],
      "topReactionsCount": 1285,
      "reactionLikeCount": 1167,
      "reactionLoveCount": 98,
      "reactionCareCount": 9,
      "reactionWowCount": 8,
      "reactionHahaCount": 1,
      "reactionSadCount": 1,
      "reactionAngryCount": 1,
      "media": [
        {
          "__typename": "Photo",
          "id": "1417649567071435",
          "thumbnail": "https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/...",
          "photo_image": { "uri": "https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/...", "width": 960, "height": 540 },
          "url": "https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1417649567071435&...",
          "ocrText": "Artistic representation of the Future Circular Collider",
          "feedback": { "can_viewer_comment": true, "id": "ZmVlZGJhY2s6..." }
        }
      ],
      "feedbackId": "ZmVlZGJhY2s6MTQxNzcwNDg3...",
      "facebookId": "100064792144187",
      "topLevelUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/100064792144187/posts/1417704873732571",
      "pageAdLibrary": {
        "is_business_page_active": false,
        "id": "169005736520113"
      },
      "inputUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/cern"
    }
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "endCursor": "Cg8Ob3JnYW5pY19j...",
    "hasNextPage": true
  }
}

For video/reel posts, media[0] has these fields instead of photo_image:

{
  "__typename": "Video",
  "id": "1540366350780488",
  "thumbnail": "https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t15.5256-10/...",
  "url": "https://www.facebook.com/reel/2188342222016401/",
  "playableUrlSd": "https://video.xx.fbcdn.net/...",
  "playableUrlHd": "https://video.xx.fbcdn.net/...",
  "viewsCount": null
}

Error handling: If response contains "error": true, check that the target page is open and the user is logged in, then retry once. If the error persists, the doc_id may have expired — see Known Limitations for recapture steps.

Pagination

API Pagination: cursor-based. Pass pagination.endCursor from each response as --cursor in the next call. Start value: omit --cursor (first page). Termination: pagination.hasNextPage === false.

Success Criteria

posts.length >= 1 AND posts[0].postId is non-null AND posts[0].user.id is non-null AND posts[0].user.profilePic is non-null

Known Limitations

• viewsCount for video posts is always null — Facebook does not include video view counts in the timeline feed GraphQL response; this field requires a separate video-specific API call not covered by this Skill
• media.playableUrlSd/Hd requires the user to be logged in; unauthenticated sessions may return null
• collaborators is an empty array for most posts (only populated when the post has tagged co-authors)
• The doc_id: 27278869228466784 is a Facebook internal query ID that may change when Facebook deploys updates; if all calls return "Unexpected response format" errors, recapture via:

1. Open any Facebook page while logged in
2. Scroll down to trigger a new batch of posts
3. network requests --filter api/graphql --method POST
4. Find the request with X-FB-Friendly-Name: ProfileCometTimelineFeedRefetchQuery
5. Extract doc_id from the POST body and update the value in scripts/get-page-posts.py

• pageName is derived from the URL path and may be incorrect for profile pages with numeric IDs (e.g., https://www.facebook.com/100012345 → pageName = 100012345)
• Requires an active Facebook login session; public/unauthenticated access is not supported
• Date filtering (afterTime/beforeTime) applies to the timeline cursor position, not a strict server-side filter; posts near the boundary may occasionally appear outside the specified range

Execution Efficiency

• Batch orchestration: Write a bash script to loop through paginated calls serially within a single session; do not parallelize within one browser (prone to triggering anti-scraping restrictions). Add a 1–2 second delay between paginated calls to avoid rate limiting. To increase throughput, open multiple browser sessions and distribute pages across them — each session has an independent fingerprint so rate limits apply per session
• Test before batch execution: After writing a batch script, test with 1-2 items first to verify the script runs correctly; only then run the full batch
• Reduce redundant pre-operations: Run get-page-id once per page URL and reuse the result for all paginated calls
• Error resumption: Save results page by page during batch processing; on failure, resume from the last successful endCursor rather than starting over

Experience Notes

Path: {working-directory}/browser-act-skill-forge-memories/facebook-posts-scraper-facebook-page-profile-posts.memory.md (working directory is determined by the Agent running the Skill, typically the project root or current working directory)

Before execution: If the file exists, read it first — it records unexpected situations encountered during past executions (e.g., a strategy has become ineffective); adjust strategy order accordingly.

After execution: If an unexpected situation is encountered (strategy became ineffective, page redesigned, anti-scraping upgraded, better path discovered), append a line: {YYYY-MM-DD}: {what happened} → {conclusion}

Normal execution does not write to the file. Do not record what pages were scraped or how many posts were returned — those are task outputs, not experience.