Katana CLI Playbook

Official docs:

• https://docs.projectdiscovery.io/opensource/katana/usage
• https://docs.projectdiscovery.io/opensource/katana/running
• https://github.com/projectdiscovery/katana

Canonical syntax: katana [flags]

High-signal flags:

• -u, -list <url|file> target URL(s)
• -d, -depth <n> crawl depth
• -jc, -js-crawl parse JavaScript-discovered endpoints
• -jsl, -jsluice deeper JS parsing (memory intensive)
• -kf, -known-files <all|robotstxt|sitemapxml> known-file crawling mode
• -proxy <http|socks5 proxy> explicit proxy setting
• -c, -concurrency <n> concurrent fetchers
• -p, -parallelism <n> concurrent input targets
• -rl, -rate-limit <n> request rate limit
• -timeout <seconds> request timeout
• -retry <n> retry count
• -ef, -extension-filter <list> extension exclusions
• -tlsi, -tls-impersonate experimental JA3/TLS impersonation
• -hl, -headless enable hybrid headless crawling
• -sc, -system-chrome use local Chrome for headless mode
• -ho, -headless-options <csv> extra Chrome options (for example proxy-server)
• -nos, -no-sandbox run Chrome headless with no-sandbox
• -noi, -no-incognito disable incognito in headless mode
• -cdd, -chrome-data-dir <dir> persist browser profile/session
• -xhr, -xhr-extraction include XHR endpoints in JSONL output
• -silent, -j, -jsonl, -o <file> output controls

Agent-safe baseline for automation: mkdir -p crawl && katana -u https://target.tld -d 3 -jc -kf robotstxt -c 10 -p 10 -rl 50 -timeout 10 -retry 1 -ef png,jpg,jpeg,gif,svg,css,woff,woff2,ttf,eot,map -silent -j -o crawl/katana.jsonl

Common patterns:

• Fast crawl baseline: katana -u https://target.tld -d 3 -jc -silent
• Deeper JS-aware crawl: katana -u https://target.tld -d 5 -jc -jsl -kf all -c 10 -p 10 -rl 50 -o katana_urls.txt
• Multi-target run with JSONL output: katana -list urls.txt -d 3 -jc -silent -j -o katana.jsonl
• Headless crawl with local Chrome: katana -u https://target.tld -hl -sc -nos -xhr -j -o crawl/katana_headless.jsonl
• Headless crawl through proxy: katana -u https://target.tld -hl -sc -ho proxy-server=http://127.0.0.1:48080 -j -o crawl/katana_proxy.jsonl

Critical correctness rules:

• -kf must be followed by one of all, robotstxt, or sitemapxml.
• Use documented -hl for headless mode.
• -proxy expects a single proxy URL string (for example http://127.0.0.1:8080).
• -ho expects comma-separated Chrome options (example: -ho --disable-gpu,proxy-server=http://127.0.0.1:8080).
• For -kf, keep depth at least -d 3 so known files are fully covered.
• If writing to a file, ensure parent directory exists before -o.

Usage rules:

• Keep -d, -c, -p, and -rl explicit for reproducible runs.
• Use -ef early to reduce static-file noise before fuzzing.
• Prefer -proxy over environment proxy variables when proxying only Katana traffic.
• Use -hc only for one-time diagnostics, not routine crawling loops.
• Do not use -h/--help for routine runs unless absolutely necessary.

Failure recovery:

• If crawl runs too long, lower -d and optionally add -ct.
• If memory spikes, disable -jsl and lower -c/-p.
• If headless fails with Chrome errors, drop -sc or install system Chrome.
• If output is noisy, tighten scope and add -ef filters.

If uncertain, query web_search with: site:docs.projectdiscovery.io katana <flag> usage