Add policy enforcement to prevent runaway crawls and credit burn

Author: L1ADCreated Apr 12, 2026Updated Aug 3, 2026

This server exposes ~10 tools including recursive crawling, batch scraping, deep research, and browser session control. Several can consume significant API credits or interact with sites in uncontrolled ways:

  • firecrawl_crawl -- recursive site crawl with no built-in depth/page limit enforcement at the MCP layer
  • firecrawl_deep_research -- autonomous multi-step research that can chain many API calls
  • firecrawl_batch_scrape -- bulk operations across many URLs
  • Browser session tools -- remote browser control

An agent in a loop calling firecrawl_crawl can burn through API credits rapidly.

Suggestion: Consider documenting support for PolicyLayer/Intercept, an open-source MCP proxy that enforces policies on tool calls before execution.

Example policy:

yaml
version: "1"
default: allow

tools:
  firecrawl_crawl:
    rules:
      - rate_limit: 3/hour

  firecrawl_deep_research:
    rules:
      - action: require_approval

  firecrawl_batch_scrape:
    rules:
      - rate_limit: 5/day

One line to set up: npx -y @policylayer/intercept init

Source: firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server