The API-First Scraping Manifesto — Stop Breaking Things

After building 77 scrapers, here's my methodology: Rule 1: Check for JSON API before writing HTML selectors Rule 2: Check for RSS feeds before rendering JavaScript Rule 3: Check for JSON-LD before parsing the DOM Rule 4: Use headless browsers only as last resort Result: 100% uptime across all 77 scrapers. Reddit = JSON API. Google News = RSS. Trustpilot = JSON-LD. YouTube = Innertube API. All 77: GitHub Custom scraping — $20: Payoneer