Apify Deploy Integration

Overview

Deploy Actors to the Apify platform and integrate their results into external applications. Covers apify push deployment, API-triggered runs from web apps (synchronous and async patterns), webhook receivers, scheduled scraping pipelines, and container deployment.

SKILL.md gives you the workflow and the core skeleton. Complete, copy-paste code for every pattern lives in references/implementation.md; end-to-end worked scenarios are in references/examples.md.

Prerequisites

• Actor tested locally (apify run)
• apify login completed (stores CLI credentials)
• Target application ready for integration

Authentication

Apps authenticate with an Apify API token. Generate one in Apify Console → Settings → Integrations and expose it as the APIFY_TOKEN environment variable — never hard-code it. The apify CLI uses its own credentials from apify login, separate from APIFY_TOKEN. Full auth notes: references/implementation.md.

Instructions

Step 1: Deploy the Actor to the platform

# Push Actor code to Apify
apify push

# Push to a specific Actor (creates if it doesn't exist)
apify push username/my-scraper

# Pull an existing Actor to modify
apify pull username/existing-actor

Step 2: Trigger the Actor from your app

Instantiate ApifyClient with your token, then either call() (blocks until the run finishes) or start() (returns immediately for polling). Here is the core synchronous skeleton:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });

const run = await client.actor('username/product-scraper').call({
  startUrls: [{ url: 'https://store.example.com' }],
  maxItems: 500,
});
if (run.status !== 'SUCCEEDED') throw new Error(run.statusMessage);

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

The full typed service — scrapeProducts (blocking), startScrape + getScrapeResults (async poll) — is in references/implementation.md.

Step 3: Choose an integration pattern

Pick the pattern that matches your app, then copy the full handler from the reference:

• Next.js API route — start a run in a POST, poll by run ID in a GET. Avoids serverless timeouts. See implementation.md.
• Express webhook receiver — register an Apify webhook and react on ACTOR.RUN.SUCCEEDED / FAILED / TIMED_OUT. See implementation.md.
• Scheduled pipeline — run on cron/Apify Schedule, export CSV, archive to a named dataset. See implementation.md.
• Docker / Cloud Run — containerize an app that calls Apify, inject the token as a secret. See implementation.md.

Rule of thumb: poll for request/response UX (a user waits on a result); use webhooks for fire-and-forget pipelines (scheduled scrapes, background enrichment).

Output

• A deployed Actor on the Apify platform (apify push build succeeds)
• An integration module (src/services/apify.ts) exposing blocking + async calls
• API routes / webhook receivers wired into your app's framework
• Structured results read from the Actor's default dataset (JSON or CSV export)
• Optional date-stamped archive in a named dataset for historical access

Error Handling

Issue	Cause	Solution
apify push fails	Auth or build error	Check apify login and Dockerfile
Webhook not received	URL unreachable from internet	Use ngrok for dev; verify HTTPS in prod
Timeout in API route	Actor takes too long	Use async pattern (start + poll)
Memory error on platform	Actor needs more RAM	Increase memory option
Large dataset download	>100MB results	Use pagination or streaming

Examples

Three end-to-end scenarios — synchronous script call, non-blocking Next.js API, and a scheduled CSV-export pipeline — are worked through in references/examples.md. Minimal blocking call:

import { scrapeProducts } from './services/apify';
const products = await scrapeProducts(['https://store.example.com/p/1']);
console.log(`Got ${products.length} products`);

Resources

• Actor Deployment
• API Integration Guide
• Webhook Documentation

Next Steps

For webhook event handling in depth, see the apify-webhooks-events skill. For the full integration code referenced above, see references/implementation.md.