Turn copying a website into a spreadsheet into an agent workflow

Stop copying the same portal into a spreadsheet every week

Pulling data off a website by hand is a familiar grind: open a supplier portal, directory or listings page, copy the name, price, stock, contact or status from each row, paste it into Google Sheets or Excel, click to the next page, and repeat, often on a weekly schedule. It is tedious and easy to get wrong, and it is exactly the kind of browse-and-copy loop an agent can replay.

How it works for this task

1. Open skillforge.expert/app and click Record.
2. Collect one page end to end: open the portal, copy each field you need from the first listing, paste it into the matching spreadsheet columns, then click Next to the following page.
3. Stop recording. SkillForge extracts the navigation, the fields you copied, the column mapping and the page-turn into a SKILL.md, with the target spreadsheet marked as the destination.
4. Hand the SKILL.md to your agent. It loops the same steps across every page, appending a clean row for each listing until the last page.

Why it beats doing it by hand

The agent copies the same fields into the same columns every time, so you avoid the misaligned rows and skipped entries that come from hours of manual copy-paste. Because it reads the screen and follows the recorded steps, it handles login-gated portals and internal dashboards that have no export button, and you get a repeatable pull you can run again next week without redoing the setup.

When a real scraper or API is the better call

For large-scale collection from public websites, a purpose-built scraper or an official data API is faster, cheaper and more robust than replaying a recording, and you should always follow each site terms of use. SkillForge is the better fit for login-gated portals, internal tools and no-API sources at low to medium volume, where writing and maintaining a scraper is not worth the effort. See also ecommerce order processing, data-entry automation and the RPA alternative guide.

FAQ

Is this the same as a scraper and is it allowed?
It replays the same browsing and copying you already do by hand, one page at a time, so it fits low to medium volume from portals you are allowed to access. For large-scale public scraping, a purpose-built scraper or an official data API is faster and cheaper; always follow each site terms of use.

Does it work on sites behind a login?
Yes. Because the agent drives the browser the way you do, it handles login-gated portals, internal dashboards and legacy tools that offer no export or API.

How does it handle pagination and many pages?
You record one page, including the click to the next page, and the agent loops the same steps across the remaining pages, appending each row to your spreadsheet.