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.

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.

DaveHanns

Small nit, otherwise LGTM 👍

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

patrikbraborec · 2026-07-22T12:35:00Z

            "id": "python-empty",
            "name": "python-empty",
-            "label": "Empty Python project",
+            "label": "Blank Actor",


Not sure if we should drop Python here, and other templates.

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 · 2026-07-31T13:06:58Z

            "id": "python-playwright",
            "name": "python-playwright",
-            "label": "Playwright + Chrome",
+            "label": "Scrape sites that need JavaScript",


Suggested change

"label": "Scrape sites that need JavaScript",

"label": "Scrape JavaScript-heavy sites with Playwright",

Why: Collides with python-selenium and python-crawlee-playwright (3-way tie in Python category). Differentiates by framework.

jgagne · 2026-07-31T13:08:00Z

            "id": "python-selenium",
            "name": "python-selenium",
-            "label": "Selenium + Chrome",
+            "label": "Scrape sites that need JavaScript",


Suggested change

"label": "Scrape sites that need JavaScript",

"label": "Scrape JavaScript-heavy sites with Selenium",

Why: Same 3-way collision. Differentiates by framework.

jgagne · 2026-07-31T13:08:33Z

            "id": "python-crawlee-playwright",
            "name": "python-crawlee-playwright",
-            "label": "Crawlee + Playwright + Chrome",
+            "label": "Scrape sites that need JavaScript",


Suggested change

"label": "Scrape sites that need JavaScript",

"label": "Scrape JavaScript-heavy sites with Crawlee",

Why: Same 3-way collision. Crawlee = managed infrastructure, not just a browser driver.

jgagne · 2026-07-31T13:10:02Z

            "id": "python-crawlee-beautifulsoup",
            "name": "python-crawlee-beautifulsoup",
-            "label": "Crawlee + BeautifulSoup",
+            "label": "Crawl a whole website (fast)",


Suggested change

"label": "Crawl a whole website (fast)",

"label": "Crawl a whole website (fast, BeautifulSoup)",

Why: Collides with python-crawlee-parsel. Library name is the only differentiator.

jgagne · 2026-07-31T13:11:06Z

            "id": "python-crawlee-parsel",
            "name": "python-crawlee-parsel",
-            "label": "Crawlee + Parsel",
+            "label": "Crawl a whole website (fast)",


Suggested change

"label": "Crawl a whole website (fast)",

"label": "Crawl a whole website (fast, Parsel)",

Why: Same collision issue.

jgagne · 2026-07-31T13:30:41Z

            "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": "Crawl a website and ask an AI questions about its content.",


Suggested change

"description": "Crawl a website and ask an AI questions about its content.",

"description": "Ask AI about a website's content.",

Why: Every other AI template dropped "crawl/scrape" wording. This was the one holdout.

jgagne · 2026-07-31T13:31:52Z

            "category": "python",
            "technologies": ["pydanticai"],
-            "description": "A PydanticAI agent designed to generate jokes, showcasing a minimal example using the Pydantic AI framework.",
+            "description": "A tiny AI agent example to learn how to build agents.",


Suggested change

"description": "A tiny AI agent example to learn how to build agents.",

"description": "A minimal AI agent that generates jokes, ready to build on.",

Why: Restores the one memorable detail the rewrite lost ("generates jokes"). Drops pedagogical tone.

jgagne · 2026-07-31T13:34:04Z

-            "description": "Crawler example that uses headless Chrome driven by Playwright to scrape a website. Headless browsers render JavaScript and can help when getting blocked.",
+            "description": "Scrape sites that load content with JavaScript, using a real browser. Use it when an HTTP scraper comes back empty, like on social feeds, dashboards, or single-page apps.",
            "messages": {
                "postCreate": "To run this actor, you need to have Playwright's browsers installed.\nTo do so, activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory, and run \"playwright install --with-deps\".\nTo install additional Python packages, you need also need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory.\n"


Suggested change

"postCreate": "To run this actor, you need to have Playwright's browsers installed.\nTo do so, activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory, and run \"playwright install --with-deps\".\nTo install additional Python packages, you need also need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory.\n"

"postCreate": "To run this Actor, you need Playwright's browsers installed.\nActivate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder, then run \"playwright install --with-deps\".\nUse the same virtual environment to install additional Python packages."

Why: Grammar bug with "you need also need to" (duplicated "need"). Also consolidates the redundant .venv instruction and removes trailing newline inconsistency.

jgagne · 2026-07-31T13:35:11Z

-            "description": "Scraper example built with Selenium and headless Chrome browser to scrape a website and save the results to storage. A popular alternative to Playwright.",
+            "description": "Scrape sites that load content with JavaScript, using a real browser. Use it when an HTTP scraper comes back empty, like on social feeds, dashboards, or single-page apps.",
            "messages": {
                "postCreate": "To run this actor, you need to have the Selenium ChromeDriver installed.\nTo install additional Python packages, you need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory."


Suggested change

"postCreate": "To run this actor, you need to have the Selenium ChromeDriver installed.\nTo install additional Python packages, you need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory."

"postCreate": "To run this Actor, you need the Selenium ChromeDriver installed.\nTo install additional Python packages, activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory."

Why: Minor trim with "you need to have the Selenium ChromeDriver installed" → "you need the Selenium ChromeDriver installed." Matches the directness of other postCreate messages.

jgagne · 2026-07-31T13:36:04Z

            "technologies": ["smolagents"],
-            "description": "Create an AI news aggregator that fetches and summarizes the latest news based on your interests, using DuckDuckGo search and OpenAI models with Python Smolagents.",
+            "description": "An AI agent that finds and summarizes news on topics you choose.",
            "archiveUrl": "https://github.com/apify/actor-templates/blob/master/dist/templates/python-pydanticai.zip?raw=true",


Suggested change

"archiveUrl": "https://github.com/apify/actor-templates/blob/master/dist/templates/python-pydanticai.zip?raw=true",

"archiveUrl": "https://github.com/apify/actor-templates/blob/master/dist/templates/python-smolagents.zip?raw=true",

Why: Pre-existing bug. Points to python-pydanticai.zip instead of python-smolagents.zip.

jgagne

Two other copy suggestions to consider.

jgagne · 2026-08-03T12:07:31Z

            "id": "python-beautifulsoup",
            "name": "python-beautifulsoup",
-            "label": "BeautifulSoup",
+            "label": "Scrape a list of web pages",


Suggested change

"label": "Scrape a list of web pages",

"label": "Scrape multiple web pages",

Why: Creates a cleaner parallel with "Scrape one web page." One/multiple is an instant differentiator when scanning.

jgagne · 2026-08-03T12:08:18Z

            "category": "python",
            "technologies": ["beautifulsoup", "httpx"],
-            "description": "Example of a web scraper that uses Python HTTPX to scrape HTML from URLs provided on input, parses it using BeautifulSoup and saves results to storage.",
+            "description": "Get data from a list of web pages. Fast and light for simple sites.",


Suggested change

"description": "Get data from a list of web pages. Fast and light for simple sites.",

"description": "Get data from multiple web pages. Fast and light for simple sites.",

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 reviewed Jun 18, 2026

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DaveHanns approved these changes Jun 18, 2026

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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

View reviewed changes

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

661677e

jgagne suggested changes Jul 31, 2026

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jgagne suggested changes Aug 3, 2026

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	"label": "Scrape sites that need JavaScript",
	"label": "Scrape JavaScript-heavy sites with Playwright",

	"label": "Crawl a whole website (fast)",
	"label": "Crawl a whole website (fast, BeautifulSoup)",

	"label": "Crawl a whole website (fast)",
	"label": "Crawl a whole website (fast, Parsel)",

	"description": "Crawl a website and ask an AI questions about its content.",
	"description": "Ask AI about a website's content.",

	"description": "A tiny AI agent example to learn how to build agents.",
	"description": "A minimal AI agent that generates jokes, ready to build on.",

	"postCreate": "To run this actor, you need to have Playwright's browsers installed.\nTo do so, activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory, and run \"playwright install --with-deps\".\nTo install additional Python packages, you need also need to activate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder in the actor directory.\n"
	"postCreate": "To run this Actor, you need Playwright's browsers installed.\nActivate the virtual environment in the \".venv\" folder, then run \"playwright install --with-deps\".\nUse the same virtual environment to install additional Python packages."

	"archiveUrl": "https://github.com/apify/actor-templates/blob/master/dist/templates/python-pydanticai.zip?raw=true",
	"archiveUrl": "https://github.com/apify/actor-templates/blob/master/dist/templates/python-smolagents.zip?raw=true",

	"label": "Scrape a list of web pages",
	"label": "Scrape multiple web pages",

	"description": "Get data from a list of web pages. Fast and light for simple sites.",
	"description": "Get data from multiple web pages. Fast and light for simple sites.",

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