chore: Update template labels and descriptions by patrikbraborec · Pull Request #814 · apify/actor-templates

patrikbraborec · 2026-06-18T13:55:57Z

Suggestion to improve labels and description of Actor Templates.

Closes #763

DaveHanns · 2026-06-18T14:05:46Z

            "id": "js-bootstrap-cheerio-crawler",
            "name": "js-bootstrap-cheerio-crawler",
-            "label": "Bootstrap CheerioCrawler",
+            "label": "Crawler starter for experienced developers",


A lot of labels were changed to a imperative form (e.g. "Scrape sites that need JavaScript").

Still there are some that are describing what the template is.
Let's try to transform these as well, if possible.

@jgagne did the review and changes, please check it now.

DaveHanns

Small nit, otherwise LGTM 👍

Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>

patrikbraborec · 2026-07-22T12:40:02Z

Let's also "synchronize" starter, blank, empty, etc.

patrikbraborec · 2026-07-22T12:52:40Z

Labels -> Actor template titles / names, descriptions -> Actor template descriptions. Also, these things will show up on:

Web: https://apify.com/templates/
In Apify Console
In Apify CLI

patrikbraborec · 2026-07-30T10:16:12Z

Hi @jgagne, will you have time to check it in upcoming week? Thanks!

jgagne · 2026-07-30T12:02:55Z

@patrikbraborec, thanks for the reminder. I'll share my suggestions by the end of the week.

jgagne

11 labels collide within the same category filter (users see identical strings). Suggestions below fix those plus 9 matching description collisions, 2 copy improvements, a grammar bug in a postCreate message, and a wrong archiveUrl.

jgagne

Two other copy suggestions to consider.

Co-authored-by: Justin Gagne <justin.gagne@montserrat.edu>

jgagne

@patrikbraborec Thanks for the push on the second pass. After the suggestions are resolved, please tag me for one final review. I promise it'll be quicker.

jgagne · 2026-08-20T13:11:57Z

-            "description": "Crawl and scrape websites using Crawlee and Playwright. Start from a URL and store results to your Apify dataset.",
+            "description": "Scrape JavaScript-heavy sites with Crawlee. Use it when you need managed retries, queues, and proxies.",
            "messages": {
                "postCreate": "To install additional Python packages, you need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory."


Suggested change

"postCreate": "To install additional Python packages, you need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory."

"postCreate": "Activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder to install additional Python packages."

jgagne · 2026-08-20T13:12:40Z

-            "description": "Crawl and scrape websites using Crawlee and Playwright with Camoufox. Start from a URL and store results to your Apify dataset.",
+            "description": "Scrape well-protected sites with a stealth-focused browser. Use it when a regular browser scraper gets blocked or challenged.",
            "messages": {
                "postCreate": "To install additional Python packages, you need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory."


Suggested change

"postCreate": "To install additional Python packages, you need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory."

"postCreate": "Activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder to install additional Python packages."

jgagne · 2026-08-20T13:13:29Z

-            "description": "This example Scrapy spider scrapes page titles from URLs defined in input parameter. It shows how to use Apify SDK for Python and Scrapy pipelines to save results.",
+            "description": "Crawl large websites in the cloud with the Scrapy framework.",
            "messages": {
                "postCreate": "To install additional Python packages, you need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory."


Suggested change

"postCreate": "To install additional Python packages, you need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory."

"postCreate": "Activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder to install additional Python packages."

jgagne

@patrikbraborec Thanks for the push on the second pass. After the suggestions are resolved, please tag me for one final review. I promise it'll be quicker.

jgagne · 2026-08-20T13:26:22Z

+            "label": "Empty Python Actor",
            "category": "python",
-            "description": "Start with Apify SDK already set up, then build any features you need.",
+            "description": "A clean Actor with the Apify SDK set up, so you can build any tool from scratch.",


Suggested change

"description": "A clean Actor with the Apify SDK set up, so you can build any tool from scratch.",

"description": "An Actor with the Apify SDK set up, so you can build any tool you need.",

jgagne · 2026-08-20T13:34:48Z

            "category": "javascript",
            "technologies": ["nodejs", "crawlee", "playwright", "camoufox"],
-            "description": "Web scraper example with Crawlee, Playwright and Camoufox. Camoufox is a custom stealthy fork of Firefox. Try this template if you're facing anti-scraping challenges.",
+            "description": "Scrape well-protected sites with a stealth-focused browser. Use it when a regular browser scraper gets blocked or challenged.",


Suggested change

"description": "Scrape well-protected sites with a stealth-focused browser. Use it when a regular browser scraper gets blocked or challenged.",

"description": "A Camoufox-based browser built to bypass anti-bot protections undetected.",

jgagne · 2026-08-20T13:37:43Z

            "category": "typescript",
            "technologies": ["nodejs", "crawlee", "playwright", "camoufox"],
-            "description": "Web scraper example with Crawlee, Playwright and headless Camoufox. Camoufox is a custom stealthy fork of Firefox. Try this template if you're facing anti-scraping challenges.",
+            "description": "Scrape well-protected sites with a stealth-focused browser. Use it when a regular browser scraper gets blocked or challenged.",


Suggested change

"description": "Scrape well-protected sites with a stealth-focused browser. Use it when a regular browser scraper gets blocked or challenged.",

"description": "A Camoufox-based browser built to bypass anti-bot protections undetected.",

Co-authored-by: Justin Gagne <justin.gagne@montserrat.edu>

jgagne

A few edits for accuracy and a formatting fix.

jgagne · 2026-08-21T19:11:10Z

            "category": "typescript",
            "technologies": ["nodejs", "crawlee", "playwright", "camoufox"],
-            "description": "Web scraper example with Crawlee, Playwright and headless Camoufox. Camoufox is a custom stealthy fork of Firefox. Try this template if you're facing anti-scraping challenges.",
+            "description": "A Camoufox-based browser built to bypass anti-bot protections undetected.",


Suggested change

"description": "A Camoufox-based browser built to bypass anti-bot protections undetected.",

"description": "A Firefox-based browser built to look like a real user and bypass bot protection.",

Removes the overclaim and clarifies what it does.

jgagne · 2026-08-21T19:12:12Z

            "category": "javascript",
            "technologies": ["nodejs", "crawlee", "playwright", "camoufox"],
-            "description": "Web scraper example with Crawlee, Playwright and Camoufox. Camoufox is a custom stealthy fork of Firefox. Try this template if you're facing anti-scraping challenges.",
+            "description": "A Camoufox-based browser built to bypass anti-bot protections undetected.",


Suggested change

"description": "A Camoufox-based browser built to bypass anti-bot protections undetected.",

"description": "A Firefox-based browser built to look like a real user and bypass bot protection.",

Removes the overclaim and clarifies what it does.

jgagne · 2026-08-21T19:16:16Z

            "category": "python",
            "technologies": ["crawlee", "playwright", "camoufox"],
-            "description": "Crawl and scrape websites using Crawlee and Playwright with Camoufox. Start from a URL and store results to your Apify dataset.",
+            "description": "A Camoufox-based browser that bypasses anti-bot protections undetected.",


Suggested change

"description": "A Camoufox-based browser that bypasses anti-bot protections undetected.",

"description": "A Firefox-based browser built to look like a real user and bypass bot protection.",

Removes the overclaim and clarifies what it does.

jgagne · 2026-08-21T19:21:41Z

            "technologies": ["mcp"],
            "skipTests": true,
-            "description": "Demonstrates how to convert a Python stdio, HTTP-streamable, or SSE-based Model Context Protocol server into an Apify Actor.",
+            "description": ""A monetized Actor from any existing MCP server. Supports stdio, HTTP, and SSE.",


Suggested change

"description": ""A monetized Actor from any existing MCP server. Supports stdio, HTTP, and SSE.",

"description": "A monetized Actor from any existing MCP server. Supports stdio, HTTP, and SSE.",

Fix: Remove errant open quote.

jgagne · 2026-08-21T19:25:45Z

            "category": "javascript",
            "technologies": ["nodejs", "langchain"],
-            "description": "Example of how to use LangChain.js with Apify to crawl, vectorize, and query web data with the OpenAI model.",
+            "description": "A site crawler that lets you ask AI questions about the content it finds.",


Suggested change

"description": "A site crawler that lets you ask AI questions about the content it finds.",

"description": "A site crawler that lets you ask AI questions about its content.",

Removes redundancy, crawling already implies "finding."

jgagne · 2026-08-21T19:35:21Z

            "category": "javascript",
            "technologies": ["nodejs", "crawlee", "playwright", "chrome"],
-            "description": "Web scraper example with Crawlee, Playwright and headless Chrome. Playwright is more modern, user-friendly and harder to block than Puppeteer.",
+            "description": "A Playwright-based browser scraper. More modern than Puppeteer and harder to block.",


Suggested change

"description": "A Playwright-based browser scraper. More modern than Puppeteer and harder to block.",

"description": "A Playwright-based browser scraper supporting multiple browsers and contexts.",

Removes subjective "more modern" for something that actually helps pick a template.

jgagne · 2026-08-21T19:35:57Z

            "category": "typescript",
            "technologies": ["nodejs", "crawlee", "playwright", "chrome"],
-            "description": "Web scraper example with Crawlee, Playwright and headless Chrome. Playwright is more modern, user-friendly and harder to block than Puppeteer.",
+            "description": "A Playwright-based browser scraper. More modern than Puppeteer and harder to block.",


Suggested change

"description": "A Playwright-based browser scraper. More modern than Puppeteer and harder to block.",

"description": "A Playwright-based browser scraper supporting multiple browsers and contexts.",

Removes subjective "more modern" for something that actually helps pick a template.

jgagne · 2026-08-21T19:51:04Z

            "id": "js-langchain",
            "name": "project_langchain_js",
-            "label": "🦜️🔗 LangChain",
+            "label": "Ask AI about any website",


Suggested change

"label": "Ask AI about any website",

"label": "Ask AI about website",

Removes the oveclaim.

patrikbraborec requested review from DaveHanns and jgagne June 18, 2026 13:55

github-actions Bot assigned patrikbraborec Jun 18, 2026

github-actions Bot added this to the 143rd sprint - DX team milestone Jun 18, 2026

github-actions Bot added the t-builders Issues owned by the Builders team. label Jun 18, 2026

DaveHanns linked an issue Jun 18, 2026 that may be closed by this pull request

Update tags, name and description of actor templates #763

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DaveHanns mentioned this pull request Jun 27, 2026

chore: audit and refine template technology tags #824

Merged

chore: Update template labels and descriptions

8bcf36e

Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>

DaveHanns force-pushed the chore/update-template-copy branch from d749e4d to 8bcf36e Compare July 13, 2026 10:00

DaveHanns requested a review from l2ysho as a code owner July 13, 2026 10:00

DaveHanns removed the request for review from l2ysho July 13, 2026 10:11

patrikbraborec commented Jul 22, 2026

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Comment thread templates/manifest.json Outdated

Merge branch 'master' into chore/update-template-copy

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jgagne suggested changes Jul 31, 2026

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Comment thread templates/manifest.json Outdated

patrikbraborec removed this from the 143rd sprint - DX team milestone Aug 17, 2026

github-actions Bot added this to the 147th sprint - Builders team milestone Aug 17, 2026

patrikbraborec and others added 2 commits August 17, 2026 15:06

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Co-authored-by: Justin Gagne <justin.gagne@montserrat.edu>

chore: Rename Blank Actor labels to Empty <Language> Actor

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patrikbraborec and others added 3 commits August 21, 2026 12:34

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jgagne reviewed Aug 21, 2026

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	"postCreate": "To install additional Python packages, you need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory."
	"postCreate": "Activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder to install additional Python packages."

	"description": "A clean Actor with the Apify SDK set up, so you can build any tool from scratch.",
	"description": "An Actor with the Apify SDK set up, so you can build any tool you need.",

	"description": "Scrape well-protected sites with a stealth-focused browser. Use it when a regular browser scraper gets blocked or challenged.",
	"description": "A Camoufox-based browser built to bypass anti-bot protections undetected.",

	"description": "A Camoufox-based browser built to bypass anti-bot protections undetected.",
	"description": "A Firefox-based browser built to look like a real user and bypass bot protection.",

	"description": ""A monetized Actor from any existing MCP server. Supports stdio, HTTP, and SSE.",
	"description": "A monetized Actor from any existing MCP server. Supports stdio, HTTP, and SSE.",

	"description": "A site crawler that lets you ask AI questions about the content it finds.",
	"description": "A site crawler that lets you ask AI questions about its content.",

	"description": "A Playwright-based browser scraper. More modern than Puppeteer and harder to block.",
	"description": "A Playwright-based browser scraper supporting multiple browsers and contexts.",

	"label": "Ask AI about any website",
	"label": "Ask AI about website",

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patrikbraborec commented Jul 22, 2026

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patrikbraborec commented Jun 18, 2026 •

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