CPAN Module Scraper

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Scrape module and release data from CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) via the MetaCPAN public API. No authentication required.

What can it do?

• Search modules by keyword, returning the latest indexed version of each matching module
• Search releases by keyword, filtered to the latest stable release of each distribution
• Fetch specific modules by exact name (e.g. Moose, DBI, Catalyst)
• Returns rich metadata: version, author, license, repository URL, bug tracker, and download info

Input

Mode descriptions

Example input — Search modules

{
"mode":"searchModules",
"searchQuery":"Moose",
"maxItems":50
}

Example input — Search releases

{
"mode":"searchReleases",
"searchQuery":"Catalyst",
"maxItems":25
}

Example input — Fetch by name

{
"mode":"getByName",
"moduleNames":["Moose","DBI","Catalyst"]
}

Output

Each record in the dataset represents one CPAN module or release.

Example output record

{
"moduleName":"Moose",
"distributionName":"Moose",
"description":"A postmodern object system for Perl 5",
"version":"2.4000",
"author":"ETHER",
"license":["perl_5"],
"releaseDate":"2025-07-04T21:24:15",
"status":"latest",
"mainModule":"Moose",
"repositoryUrl":"https://github.com/moose/Moose",
"homepage":"http://moose.perl.org/",
"bugTracker":"https://rt.cpan.org/Dist/Display.html?Name=Moose",
"downloadUrl":"https://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/E/ET/ETHER/Moose-2.4000.tar.gz",
"sourceUrl":"https://metacpan.org/dist/Moose",
"recordType":"module",
"scrapedAt":"2025-05-30T10:00:00+00:00"
}

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this require an API key? No. The MetaCPAN API is fully public and does not require authentication.

What is the difference between searchModules and searchReleases? searchModules searches at the individual Perl module level (.pm files). searchReleases searches at the distribution level — a distribution is a tarball that may contain many modules. For most use cases, searchReleases gives cleaner, one-record-per-package results.

Why does a search for "Moose" return modules from other distributions? CPAN modules can be bundled inside other distributions. For example, a distribution may vendor Moose as a dependency. The search index includes all indexed files.

What does status: backpan mean? BackPAN is the historical archive of CPAN — packages that have been removed from the active CPAN index but are still available for download.

How fresh is the data? Each run fetches live data from the MetaCPAN API. MetaCPAN indexes new uploads within minutes of upload to CPAN.

Can I fetch a specific version of a module? The getByName mode always returns the latest indexed version. To get older versions, use searchReleases and filter results by version.