Pure Article

Extract the main article content from any URL using Mozilla Readability and JSDOM — available as a CLI and a minimal web UI.

Features

• Clean article extraction (removes ads/nav/sidebar cruft)
• Outputs title, optional byline, plain text, and original HTML
• CLI with --json and --html modes
• Simple Express web UI to paste a URL and view the result

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 18 (fetch, WHATWG APIs)
• npm ci to install exact dependencies

Quick Start

CLI

• Dev (TypeScript via tsx):
  • npm run dev -- <url> [--json] [--html]
• Build + run:
  • npm run build
  • npm start -- <url> [--json] [--html]
• Installed binary (after build):
  • pure-article <url> [--json] [--html]

Examples:

• Text: npm run dev -- https://example.com/article
• JSON: npm run dev -- https://example.com/article --json
• HTML fragment: npm run dev -- https://example.com/article --html

Web UI

• Dev server: npm run web then open http://localhost:3000
• Change port: PORT=3001 npm run web or pick a random free port with PORT=0 npm run web
• Built server: npm run build then npm run web:start

Programmatic API

import { extractArticle } from './src/index.js';

const article = await extractArticle('https://example.com/post', {
  userAgent: 'MyBot/1.0',
  timeoutMs: 15000,
});

console.log(article.title);
console.log(article.byline);
console.log(article.contentText);
// article.contentHtml contains the Readability HTML fragment

Returned shape:

• url: string
• title: string
• byline?: string
• contentText: string (plain text, paragraphs preserved)
• contentHtml?: string (original Readability HTML)
• excerpt?: string | null, length?: number | null, siteName?: string | null

Scripts

• npm run dev — CLI in watch/dev mode
• npm run web — start web UI in dev (set PORT as needed)
• npm run build — type‑check and compile to dist/
• npm start — run compiled CLI (node dist/cli.js)
• npm run web:start — run compiled web server (node dist/server.js)
• npm test — run Vitest
• npm run lint / npm run format — ESLint / Prettier

Project Structure

• src/ — TypeScript source (CLI, server, extractor)
• tests/ — Vitest specs
• dist/ — compiled JS output (generated)

Notes & Limits

• Extraction quality depends on page markup; some sites may not parse perfectly.
• Respect target sites’ Terms of Service and robots policies. Use responsibly.
• Network timeouts and user‑agent can be adjusted via ExtractOptions.

Development

• Install deps: npm ci
• Lint/format: npm run lint / npm run format
• Tests: npm test (add -- --coverage for coverage)