Sessions & proxies
Most scrapes are single-shot. When you need to hold cookies across requests or target a specific geography, use sessions and proxy controls.
Sessions
Section titled “Sessions”A session persists cookies, browser state, and the upstream proxy IP across multiple requests. Pass session_id with any string you choose:
curl "https://scrape.shifter.io/v1?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY&url=https://example.com/login&session_id=worker-42&render_js=1"curl "https://scrape.shifter.io/v1?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY&url=https://example.com/dashboard&session_id=worker-42&render_js=1"The second request reuses the login cookies from the first. Sessions live for up to 10 minutes of idle time before they expire.
Session use cases
Section titled “Session use cases”- Log in once, scrape authenticated pages on the same session
- Walk paginated results that depend on server-side cursors
- Hold a shopping cart open across item adds
Geolocation
Section titled “Geolocation”Request a proxy from a specific country with country:
curl "https://scrape.shifter.io/v1?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY&url=https://shop.example.com&country=de"Values are ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes. Available globally on Growth plans and above; Starter is US/EU only.
Proxy pools
Section titled “Proxy pools”| Parameter | Pool | Available on |
|---|---|---|
| default (no flag) | Smart-selected for the target | All plans |
premium_proxy=1 | Residential IPs from the 205M+ pool | Growth and above |
mobile_proxy=1 | Mobile carrier IPs | Growth and above |
Combine with country for fine control:
curl "https://scrape.shifter.io/v1?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY&url=https://news.example.com&premium_proxy=1&country=jp"Using your own proxy
Section titled “Using your own proxy”Route the request through your own upstream proxy with forward_proxy (URL-encoded):
curl "https://scrape.shifter.io/v1?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY&url=https://example.com&forward_proxy=http%3A%2F%2Fuser%3Apass%40your-proxy.example.com%3A8080"Useful for hybrid setups where some targets require your corporate proxy.
- Advanced, custom headers, cookies, POST, binary.
- Errors & limits, concurrency caps, error codes.