--- name: brightdata-linkedin description: Look up and discover LinkedIn people, companies, jobs, and posts via Bright Data's pay-as-you-go Web Scraper API — pull a person's full profile (experience, education, skills), a company's profile (HQ, headcount, industries, employees), a job posting, or a post's engagement and metadata; or discover profiles by name, jobs by keyword/location, and posts by author URL. Trigger whenever the user says "look up on LinkedIn", "get LinkedIn data for ", "scrape the LinkedIn profile of ", "find LinkedIn jobs for ", "pull the LinkedIn company page for ", or otherwise asks for structured LinkedIn data. This is the sole LinkedIn data provider for Rivas Will — self-contained; the calling agent tracks the shared Bright Data daily cap. --- # brightdata-linkedin Thin wrapper around Bright Data's **LinkedIn Web Scraper APIs** (pay-as-you-go, no minimum spend). Covers four datasets: | Dataset | Dataset ID | What it returns | |---|---|---| | People profile | `gd_l1viktl72bvl7bjuj0` | A person's full profile (about, experience, education, skills, activity, current position) | | Company info | `gd_l1vikfnt1wgvvqz95w` | A company page (HQ, founded, headcount, industries, recent updates, employee samples) | | Jobs | `gd_lpfll7v5hcqtkxl6l` | Individual LinkedIn job postings (title, company, salary, seniority, description) | | Posts | `gd_lyy3tktm25m4avu764` | Posts / articles with author, engagement, reactions, comments | Scripts hide the trigger → poll → download loop so callers stay task-oriented. ## Prerequisites `BRIGHTDATA_API_TOKEN` must be set on a Bright Data account with the **LinkedIn Web Scraper APIs** enabled. Scripts exit with a clear error if the token is missing. ## The only LinkedIn provider This is the **sole** LinkedIn data source for Rivas Will. Any time a beat needs structured LinkedIn data — a person's profile, a company page, a job posting, a post's engagement — it comes from here. This skill is **self-contained**: call its scripts directly. It shares the **BrightData** token with `brightdata-crunchbase` and `brightdata-pitchbook`, so a LinkedIn lookup and a Crunchbase lookup draw from the same 100/day pool. The calling agent tracks that shared daily count. ## Billing model — read this before running anything Bright Data's LinkedIn Web Scraper API bills **per returned record** on the pay-as-you-go plan (~$0.001–$0.0015 per record, no minimum spend). - **Lookups** (`lookup_*.py`) bill for one record per input URL. Predictable and cheap — always prefer this when the user knows the person/company/ job/post URL. - **Discoveries** (`discover_*.py`) bill for every row returned. A broad discovery (e.g. jobs by keyword "software engineer" in the US) can return thousands of rows fast, so `--limit-per-input` is required. - **Snapshot retention is 16 days.** Re-downloading via `get_snapshot.py` is free. Don't re-trigger for the same data inside that window. - `describe_fields.py`, `list_snapshots.py`, and `--status-only` on `get_snapshot.py` are free (metadata-only, no scraping). ## Tasks Run from this skill directory; each prints one JSON object to stdout. ### People profiles - **Look up people by profile URL** — `python scripts/lookup_people.py --url https://www.linkedin.com/in/ [--url ...] [--fields name,headline,experience] [--no-wait]` Start here. One billable record per URL. - **Discover people by name** — `python scripts/discover_people.py --name "First Last" [--name ...] [--no-wait]` Discover-new mode. One billable record per returned match (usually 1–5 per name). Ambiguous names (`John Smith`) can return noisy results — confirm the right profile before pivoting to `lookup_people.py`. ### Companies - **Look up companies by LinkedIn URL** — `python scripts/lookup_companies.py --url https://www.linkedin.com/company/ [--url ...] [--fields ...] [--no-wait]` One billable record per URL. Accepts `linkedin.com/company/` and the `il.linkedin.com` / `organization-guest/company/` variants. ### Jobs - **Look up a job by posting URL** — `python scripts/lookup_jobs.py --url https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/ [--url ...] [--no-wait]` One billable record per URL. Use when you already have a posting URL. - **Discover jobs by keyword + location** — `python scripts/discover_jobs.py --keyword "VP Corporate Development" --location "New York" [--country US] [--remote Remote] [--job-type Full-time] [--experience-level "Mid-Senior level"] [--company "Acme"] --limit-per-input 25 [--no-wait]` `--limit-per-input` is required. Start small (25) — a broad combo can return hundreds of rows. ### Posts - **Look up posts by URL** — `python scripts/lookup_posts.py --url https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ [--url ...] [--no-wait]` One billable record per URL. Handles `/posts/`, `/pulse/`, and `/feed/update/` URLs. - **Discover posts by author** — `python scripts/discover_posts.py --profile-url https://www.linkedin.com/in/ [--profile-url ...] [--no-wait]` **or** `--company-url https://www.linkedin.com/company/` Pulls recent posts by a person or a company page. One billable record per returned post — pass `--limit-per-input` to cap it. ### Shared helpers (all datasets) - **Re-download an existing snapshot** — `python scripts/get_snapshot.py --snapshot-id s_xxx [--status-only]` Free within the 16-day retention window. Use this instead of re-triggering. - **List recent snapshots** — `python scripts/list_snapshots.py [--kind people|company|jobs|posts] [--status ready] [--limit 20]` Free. Handy if the user lost a snapshot id. - **Describe the field schema** — `python scripts/describe_fields.py --kind people|company|jobs|posts [--names-only] [--active-only]` Free. Authoritative source for what columns the scraper can return — each dataset has its own schema. ## Guidance - **Resolve the canonical URL first.** The lookup scripts expect a real LinkedIn URL. For people: `https://www.linkedin.com/in/`. For companies: `https://www.linkedin.com/company/`. If the user gives a display name, resolve the URL via the brightdata-serp skill (`search.py 'site:linkedin.com/in/ ""' --format parsed`, one paid SERP call) before calling the scraper — cheap compared to wasting a full profile scrape on a wrong URL. - **Cap discoveries.** If the user says "find me VP Corp Dev roles" without a number, default to `--limit-per-input 25` and tell them you capped it so they don't get surprised on their next Bright Data invoice. Increase only on explicit request. - **Default to the full record.** Every `lookup_*.py` and `discover_*.py` script already returns the complete dataset row when `--fields` is omitted — leave it omitted. Trimming saves nothing on the bill (billing is per-record, not per-field) and routinely strips out signals the caller didn't know they wanted (experience history, recent activity, employee samples, post engagement metadata). Only pass `--fields` when the user explicitly asks for a trimmed payload or context-window pressure forces it (e.g. `--fields name,headline,current_company`). - **For long jobs, use `--no-wait`.** Record the `snapshot_id` in your response so the user can fetch later via `get_snapshot.py`. Large discoveries can take 10+ minutes. - **Prefer cached data.** Before triggering, ask whether the user already has a snapshot_id from a recent run — `get_snapshot.py` is free within 16 days of the original trigger. - **Don't dump raw JSON.** See the output contract below. ## Output contract For a **person**, summarise the profile in 4–8 bullets: - Full name (+ current headline) - Current role and company - Location - Notable prior experience (top 2–3) - Education (top entry) - Top skills (3–5) if the user asked - Profile URL For a **company**, summarise in 4–8 bullets: - Name (+ legal name if different) - One-sentence description - HQ city, country - Founded - Industries (top 3) - Headcount range - Website + LinkedIn URL For **jobs**, use a compact table or bulleted list per posting (title, company, location, seniority, posting URL, maybe salary if present) — capped at the top 5–10 when discovering. For **posts**, summarise each post with author, posting date, a one-line excerpt, reaction/comment counts, and the post URL. Always include the `snapshot_id` at the end so the user can re-fetch for free. **Never dump the full JSON unless the user explicitly asks for "raw data".** ## References - `references/curls.md` — verified curl examples for every endpoint - `references/fields.md` — grouped field list per dataset (convenience; not authoritative) - `references/LIMITS.md` — billing, retention, auth, and failure modes ## Smoke test ```bash python scripts/smoke_test.py ``` Free, metadata-only. Asserts the dataset metadata call works for all four LinkedIn datasets (people, company, jobs, posts). Prints `SKIP: BRIGHTDATA_API_TOKEN not set` if the token is missing, so unauthenticated CI doesn't fail.