# Get started with Expand (https://expand.ai/docs)

Send a page URL and get Markdown with tables and icons intact, plus the page's hidden JSON as State JSON. Each Markdown line links to its source. Set up your agent, or run your first Fetch from the CLI, the TypeScript SDK, or the API.

Expand Fetch is an API for agents that read the web. You send a URL. Expand opens it in a real browser, and our model Iris looks at the rendered page instead of guessing from the HTML. You get the page back as Markdown with tables, icons, and layout intact, plus the page's hidden JSON as [State JSON](https://expand.ai/docs/fetch#state-json). Every line links back to the spot on the page it came from, so you always know what your agent read.

[Why Expand](https://expand.ai/docs/why-expand) explains what ordinary Markdown tools drop, and how Expand keeps it.

Paste this into your coding agent to set up Expand:

```txt
Read https://expand.ai/start.md and set up Expand. Fetch it as raw text with curl. A summarizing web-fetch tool drops the exact commands.
```

To configure one agent yourself, [set up the hosted MCP server](https://expand.ai/docs/mcp-server).

Prefer code? The [Quickstart](https://expand.ai/docs/quickstart) runs your first Fetch from the CLI, the TypeScript SDK, or the API.

## Building blocks

Fetch is one API, and everything that reads a page runs on it. Iris and X-Ray work on browser pages. The Wayback Machine keeps a replayable [Snapshot](https://expand.ai/docs/fetch#snapshot--evidence) of each browser page you fetch, and [Highlights](https://expand.ai/docs/highlights/two-ways-to-highlight) finds the snippets in a page that answer a question. Search finds the pages worth fetching. Crawl runs Fetch over a whole site, and WebSync keeps running it to catch changes.

- [Fetch](https://expand.ai/docs/fetch) turns a URL into Markdown, with State JSON and a replayable Snapshot for browser pages.
- [Iris](https://expand.ai/docs/fetch/iris) writes the Markdown from the rendered page.
- [X-Ray](https://expand.ai/docs/fetch/x-ray) finds the data behind the page.
- [Wayback Machine](https://expand.ai/docs/wayback-machine) saves Snapshots to replay and cite.
- [Highlights](https://expand.ai/docs/highlights) finds cited passages that answer a query.
- [Search](https://expand.ai/docs/search) finds the web pages that answer a query, ranked.
- [Crawl](https://expand.ai/docs/crawl) runs Fetch across a site.
- [WebSync](https://expand.ai/docs/websync) keeps a crawl up to date.