Translated from the original Japanese article
Tech 2 min read

I Made a Skill to Replace Claude Code's WebFetch

Claude Code AI Developer Productivity Configuration Skills Experiment

Claude Code’s WebFetch tool has a bug where the domain:* wildcard doesn’t work, so I built a skill to replace it.

Previous article: Claude Code Permissions: I Have No Idea What I’m Doing

The Problem

I tried allowing WebFetch in Claude Code’s config file (settings.local.json):

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "WebFetch(domain:*)"
    ]
  }
}

But even with this setting, every WebFetch usage still prompted for permission.

After looking into it, this turned out to be a known bug:

The Fix

Since Bash(curl:*) works fine, the approach is to fetch pages with curl and process them in a skill.

WebFetch’s internal process is:

  1. Fetch the page with Axios
  2. Summarize with Haiku
  3. Return the result

This skill recreates that flow.

Skill Implementation

Create .claude/skills/web-fetch/SKILL.md:

---
permissionMode: bypassPermissions
tools: Bash
model: claude-haiku-4-5-20251001
---

# WebFetch Alternative Skill (project)

A workaround for the bug where WebFetch's `domain:*` wildcard doesn't work.
Uses a sub-agent + curl to achieve equivalent functionality. Saves context.

## Arguments: $ARGUMENTS

Format: `URL question`
Example: `https://example.com Give me a summary of this page`

---

## Steps

Launch a sub-agent with the Task tool and have it run the following:

subagent_type: general-purpose
model: haiku
prompt: |
  Access the following URL with curl and answer the question.

  URL: [URL portion of $ARGUMENTS]
  Question: [everything after the URL in $ARGUMENTS]

  Steps:
  1. Fetch the page with: curl -sL "URL" | head -500
  2. Extract text content from HTML
  3. Answer the question concisely in English

  Return only the answer.

Return the sub-agent's response directly to the user.

Key points:

  • permissionMode: bypassPermissions — Bash permission not required
  • model: claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 — saves cost (full model name required)
  • head -500 — saves context

Usage

/web-fetch https://example.com Give me a summary of this page

Notes

curl Permission

This skill uses curl internally, so settings.local.json must include Bash(curl:*):

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "Bash(curl:*)"
    ]
  }
}

Model Name

Model name behavior may vary by environment. Sometimes haiku works; sometimes you need the full name like claude-haiku-4-5-20251001. Try the full name if you get an error.

Reference