Fetch

---
name: fetch
description: Size-efficient URL fetch with semantic extraction. Use for ad-hoc web research when you want content without the raw HTML overhead.
tools:
  - mcp__silo__silo_smart-fetch
  - WebFetch
  - Read
---

# /fetch -- Ad-hoc URL fetch with smart extraction

Pulls a URL's main content (title, description, body paragraphs) without the HTML boilerplate. Delegates to silo's `smart-fetch` MCP tool, which strips scripts/styles/nav/footer and targets `<main>` or `<article>` regions. Typical reduction: 80-99% vs raw HTML.

## Arguments

$ARGUMENTS

Expected: `/fetch <url> [--mode auto|concise|full|meta-only] [--no-cache] [--privacy]`

- **`--mode auto`** (default): tries concise extraction, falls back to full if quality degrades
- **`--mode concise`**: caps body at ~2KB
- **`--mode full`**: returns all extracted paragraphs
- **`--mode meta-only`**: only title + description (smallest)
- **`--no-cache`**: skip local cache read, force network fetch
- **`--privacy`**: don't write to cache (use for sensitive URLs)

## When to use

- **Quick reference**: "what does this page say" — `/fetch <url>` beats opening a browser
- **Before witnessing**: peek at content before committing to `/witness` (which creates a claim)
- **Third-party pages**: docs sites, blog posts, research articles
- **Re-reading**: cache hits are ~1ms; great for iterating on content you've already fetched

## When NOT to use

- **Confluence**: use `/pull` — structured API is better than HTML scraping
- **DeepWiki**: use `/pull deepwiki` — it already has a cleaner path
- **Authenticated pages**: smart-fetch doesn't do auth. Use farmer for approval-gated flows.
- **PDFs, images, JSON**: smart-fetch rejects non-HTML content types with `unsupported-content-type`

## Instructions

1. **Call `mcp__silo__silo_smart-fetch`** with the URL and parsed flags.

2. **If the response `quality` is "failed"** (empty body, SPA, link list, HTTP error), tell the user:
   - What the reported quality was
   - Any warnings returned
   - Suggest retrying with `--mode full` or raw `WebFetch` as a fallback

3. **Display** the extracted content in a readable format:
   - Title, description
   - Full content (or first N lines if very long)
   - Size reduction metric and cache hit/miss status

4. **Suggest next actions** based on what the user seems to be doing:
   - If they're corroborating a claim: `/witness <claim_id> <url> --smart`
   - If they want to save findings: `/research "<topic extracted from content>"`
   - If the content was weak/failed: `/fetch <url> --mode full` or open in a browser

## Example output

```
URL:        https://example.com/article
Quality:    high  |  Cached: no (first fetch)
Title:      "Understanding Smart Fetch"
Size:       142.1 KB -> 2.3 KB (98% reduction)
Mode used:  concise
Elapsed:    340ms

--- Content ---
[first 2KB of extracted main content]

Next steps:
  /witness r003 <url> --smart  -- corroborate a claim with this source
  /fetch <url> --mode full     -- get the full extracted body
  silo cache stats             -- see what's cached locally
```

## Anti-rationalization

| Rationalization | Reality |
|:---|:---|
| "Smart-fetch lost content" | Check the `quality` field. If "failed", retry with `--mode full`. If "degraded", the site may be a SPA — content depends on JS execution. |
| "I should always use full mode" | Full is fine for small pages but wasteful on long docs. `auto` handles the fallback for you. |
| "Cached content might be stale" | Default TTL is 7 days. Use `--no-cache` for latest, or `silo cache purge <domain>` to drop specific entries. |