firecrawl / firecrawl/cli

search: --categories rejects "developer" client-side although POST /v2/search accepts it

Open Beginner friendly
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Dominant language
TypeScript
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Forks
100
Avg merge
5h 9m
Merged PRs (30d)
25

Description

### Summary

`firecrawl search --categories developer` exits 1 with `Error: Invalid category "developer". Valid categories: github, research, pdf` before any request is made, but the API accepts the category and returns results tagged `developer`.

### Version

`firecrawl-cli` 1.19.26 (npm), Node 24.12.0, Linux.

### Where

`dist/index.js` line 701 in the published package:

```js
const validCategories = ['github', 'research', 'pdf'];
```

### Reproduction

```
$ firecrawl search "foundationdb queue worker shutdown" --categories developer --limit 2 --json
Error: Invalid category "developer". Valid categories: github, research, pdf
```

The same request against the API succeeds (2026-09-13):

```
POST https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/search
{"query": "foundationdb queue worker shutdown", "categories": ["developer"], "limit": 2}
-> HTTP 200, success: true, creditsUsed present, results with "category": "developer"
(forums.foundationdb.org pages, which the github category does not return)
```

The hosted MCP server's `firecrawl_search` tool already lists `developer` in its `categories` enum alongside `github`, `research`, and `pdf`.

### Suggested fix

Add `'developer'` to `validCategories`, or drop the client-side list and let the API validate so new categories work without a CLI release.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Research direction

Start at dist/index.js line 701 and compare the CLI category validation with the hosted MCP categories enum and the API behavior described in the issue. Run the provided firecrawl search command with --categories developer; done means the CLI accepts developer and sends the request successfully instead of rejecting it locally.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
node.js, typescript
Domain
cli
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
75/100

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