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Getting started 3 min read

Install recurl as a curl drop-in

recurl is a single binary that forwards every standard curl flag. Installing it and aliasing curl to recurl means your existing scripts keep working unchanged — they just stop returning 403 on bot-protected hosts.

  1. 1

    Install with your packager

    recurl ships on npm, PyPI, Homebrew, and Cargo. They all install the same binary — pick whichever fits your toolchain.

    npm i -g recurl-cli
# or: pip install recurl-cli
# or: brew tap neul-labs/tap && brew install recurl
# or: cargo install recurl
  2. 2

    Verify the binary

    Confirm recurl is on your PATH. It forwards --version to the wrapped upstream curl so you can see the curl it is driving.

    recurl --version
  3. 3

    Alias curl to recurl

    Add the alias to your shell profile (or your CI job). Every curl invocation now runs through recurl’s escalation chain while keeping identical flags and exit codes.

    echo 'alias curl=recurl' >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc
  4. 4

    Run an existing request

    Run any curl command you already use. On unprotected hosts nothing changes; on bot-protected hosts recurl escalates automatically and returns the response your script expected.

    curl -s https://example.com/api/data | jq .

# note

On Linux and macOS recurl bundles curl-impersonate for the TLS layer. On Windows it skips impersonation and goes straight to the JS preflight layer when a request looks blocked.

Next steps

Read the escalation architecture, see the full feature surface, or browse more guides.

Read the docs → Ask a question