Katana Command Guide

Katana (by ProjectDiscovery) is a next-generation crawling and spidering framework. It is faster and smarter than many predecessors.

Top 10 Useful Commands

1. Single User

katana -u http://example.com

Explanation: Basic crawl.

2. List Input

katana -list urls.txt

Explanation: Crawl multiple URLs.

3. Javascript Crawling (Headless)

katana -u http://example.com -jc

Explanation: Enables Javascript crawling (headless browser). Finds links dynamically generated by JS (React/Vue).

4. Depth

katana -u http://example.com -d 5

Explanation: Recursion depth.

5. Output File

katana -u http://example.com -o crawl.txt

Explanation: Save output.

6. Field Extraction

katana -u http://example.com -f qurl

Explanation: outputs the "qurl" field (Query URL) only.

7. Automatic Scope

katana -u http://example.com -cs

Explanation: Crawl Scope (-cs). Keeps the crawler within the pinned scope (subdomains/domains of target).

8. Custom Headers

katana -u http://example.com -H "Authorization: Bearer token"

Explanation: Authenticated crawling.

9. Grep/Match

katana -u http://example.com -em "password"

Explanation: Extension Match (-em). Only output URLs matching specific patterns.

10. Rate Limit

katana -u http://example.com -rl 50

Explanation: Limit requests per second.

The Most Powerful Command

katana -u http://example.com -jc -d 3 -cs -o endpoints.txt

Explanation: Uses Headless JS crawling (-jc) to render the full site, stays in scope (-cs), digs 3 levels deep, and maps the entire application structure.