# Stack Overflow Scraper - Questions by Tag or Keyword (`om_kh/vigia-stackoverflow-monitor`) Actor

First 10 results free. Search Stack Overflow for any tag or keyword: question title, URL, author, score, answer count, tags and date. Reads the official Stack Exchange API, so there is nothing to block. Clean deduplicated rows for developer-audience research.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/om\_kh/vigia-stackoverflow-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [omar khandji](https://apify.com/om_kh) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Business, AI
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Stack Overflow Monitor — New Question Alerts (Vigia)

> Monitor Stack Overflow for a tag and get only NEW questions since last check, with a question-velocity spike signal. Read demand for a technology or catch issues with your dev-tool. Charged only on new questions, never per run. Ideal for dev-tool marketing and support agents.

> **100% first-party.** This monitor reads the **official Stack Exchange API** directly — no third-party scraper in the middle. There is no upstream actor that can break, rate-limit, or go dark, and the source check costs just **$0.02**.

### Free tier — 10 results free on every run

**The first 10 results of every run are free**, on every run you ever make —
not a one-off trial. Run it on your own subjects and see the real output before
you are billed for a single result.

One guard: the free allowance never covers more than half of a run, so a run
returning 6 results gets 3 free. That keeps the offer sustainable.

### What it does

Read demand for a technology, or catch issues with your dev-tool, from new Stack Overflow questions. You get **only what changed since your last check** — never a full re-dump to diff yourself.

### Why Vigia — 5 advantages a raw scraper can't match

1. **You pay the alert price only for real change.** New-question alerts are billed only for genuinely new questions since your last check. A quiet run bills just the small source-check fee (the cost of looking) — never the alert price on unchanged data. Raw scrapers bill every row of a full re-scan every run.
2. **Never billed on a failed source.** The source check is charged only when the source actually responded. If it's down, you don't pay for our outage.
3. **Append-only delta + spike signal.** The first monitored run stores a free baseline; later runs deliver only what's new, plus a velocity-spike alert when volume suddenly surges (trend / review-bomb / hiring-surge).
4. **Hard cost cap you control.** Set `maxTotalChargeUsd` and the run can never bill above it — predictable spend, no surprise invoice.
5. **Agent-ready output.** Clean, normalized rows and a `RUN_SUMMARY.json` with ready-to-use signals — chainable from any MCP / A2A agent in one step.

### Example input

```json
{
  "tags": [
    "your-product",
    "react"
  ],
  "monitorEnabled": true,
  "maxTotalChargeUsd": 1.0
}
```

Set `monitorEnabled: true` so the first run stores a free baseline and later runs return only new results. Pin a `monitorId` to keep separate targets from sharing state.

### Output

Each row is a normalized change record: `record_id`, `query_id`, `title`, `url`, `author`, `published_at`, `score`, `text`. A `RUN_SUMMARY.json` accompanies every run with the aggregated signal (counts, velocity spikes, trend).

### How you're charged

- **Question alert** — billed once per new question since the last check (this is the only charge that scales with change).
- **Source check** ($0.18) — billed once per monitored target per run, **only when the source responded**. A failed source is free.
- **A quiet run bills only the source check** ($0.18), never the alert price. Vigia never scrapes the source itself; it chains a licensed scraper, caps every call, and passes you only the delta.

***

*Part of the Vigia monitoring suite — change-only billing, outage-safe, agent-ready.*

### Related scrapers

Same data, other sources — all with the same free tier, the same clean schema and the same pay-only-for-what-you-get billing:

| Actor |
|---|
| [Reddit Search Scraper - Posts & Mentions by Keyword](https://apify.com/om_kh/vigia-reddit-brand-monitor) |
| [Reddit Subreddit Scraper - Posts & Discussions](https://apify.com/om_kh/vigia-reddit-subreddit-monitor) |
| [Hacker News Scraper - Posts & Comments by Keyword](https://apify.com/om_kh/vigia-hackernews-monitor) |
| [Quora Scraper - Questions, Answers & Topics](https://apify.com/om_kh/vigia-quora-monitor) |
| [Google News Scraper - 100% Free, Unlimited Articles](https://apify.com/om_kh/vigia-google-news-monitor) |
| [X (Twitter) Search Scraper - Posts by Keyword](https://apify.com/om_kh/vigia-x-keyword-monitor) |

# Actor input Schema

## `tags` (type: `array`):

Tags to monitor (e.g. 'python', 'react', 'your-product'). Each is watched for new questions.

## `currentItems` (type: `array`):

Skip the chained fetch and pass records directly (no upstream call, no fetch fee).

## `maxTotalChargeUsd` (type: `number`):

Hard maximum amount that this run may charge.

## `sources` (type: `array`):

Declare every upstream source before this run. Each item needs name, authorization, and estimated\_cost\_usd.

## `monitorEnabled` (type: `boolean`):

The first monitored run stores a free baseline. Later runs deliver and charge only new results.

## `monitorId` (type: `string`):

Pins the persistent baseline to a name of your choice, so separate targets never share state. Leave empty to derive it automatically.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "tags": [
    "your-product",
    "react"
  ],
  "currentItems": [],
  "maxTotalChargeUsd": 1,
  "sources": [
    {
      "name": "Chained upstream actor",
      "authorization": "public_structured_data",
      "estimated_cost_usd": 0
    }
  ],
  "monitorEnabled": false,
  "monitorId": ""
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "tags": [
        "your-product",
        "react"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("om_kh/vigia-stackoverflow-monitor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "tags": [
        "your-product",
        "react",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("om_kh/vigia-stackoverflow-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "tags": [
    "your-product",
    "react"
  ]
}' |
apify call om_kh/vigia-stackoverflow-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=om_kh/vigia-stackoverflow-monitor",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/c3zgQYWfhzUN62EbH/builds/NgxVl3FaUCPYJhSBf/openapi.json