I built an SDK that scrambles HTML so scrapers get garbage
Hey HN -- I'm a solo dev. Built this because I got tired of AI crawlers reading my HTML in plain text while robots.txt did nothing. The core trick: shuffle characters and words in your HTML using a seed, then use CSS (flexbox order, direction: rtl, unicode-bidi) to put them back visually. Browser renders perfectly. textContent returns garbage. On top of that: email/phone RTL obfuscation with decoy characters, AI honeypots that inject prompt instructions into LLM scrapers, clipboard interception, canvas-based image rendering (no img src in DOM), robots.txt blocking 30+ AI crawlers, and…
In plain words
This SDK scrambles HTML content to prevent AI crawlers from reading website text while keeping pages visually normal for human users. It uses CSS techniques like flexbox and text direction to render content correctly in browsers while returning garbage to scraping tools. The tool also includes features like email obfuscation, honeypots that inject instructions into LLM scrapers, clipboard interception, and canvas-based image rendering. It blocks 30+ known AI crawlers via robots.txt and adds forensic markers to detect content theft. The maker acknowledges it cannot stop determined adversaries using headless browsers or screenshot-based extraction.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey HN -- I'm a solo dev. Built this because I got tired of AI crawlers reading my HTML in plain text while robots.txt did nothing. The core trick: shuffle characters and words in your HTML using a seed, then use CSS (flexbox order, direction: rtl, unicode-bidi) to put them back visually. Browser renders perfectly. textContent returns garbage. On top of that: email/phone RTL obfuscation with decoy characters, AI honeypots that inject prompt instructions into LLM scrapers, clipboard interception, canvas-based image rendering (no img src in DOM), robots.txt blocking 30+ AI crawlers, and forensic breadcrumbs to prove content theft. What it doesn't stop: headless browsers that execute CSS, screenshot+OCR, or anyone determined enough to reverse-engineer the ordering. I put this in the README's threat model because I'd rather say it myself than have someone else say it for me. The realistic goal is raising the cost of scraping -- most bots use simple HTTP requests, and we make that useless. TypeScript, Bun, tsup, React 18+. 162 tests. MIT licensed. Nothing to sell -- the SDK is free and complete. Best way to understand it: open DevTools on the site and inspect the text. GitHub: https://github.com/obscrd/obscrd
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