How to Use Scout for Lead Generation

Scrape, enrich, and export professional leads using an open-source CLI tool.

Scout is an open-source CLI tool designed for appointment setters and sales professionals to scrape profiles across multiple platforms, enrich leads with verified email addresses, and export data directly to CSV.

1. Prerequisites and Installation

Clone the repository and install dependencies.

Ensure you have Python 3.10 or higher installed on your operating system (macOS, Linux, or Windows). Open your terminal and run the following commands to install Scout:

git clone https://github.com/kiryano/Scout.git
cd Scout
pip install -r requirements.txt
lp .env.example .env

2. Configure Environment Variables

Set up optional credentials like LinkedIn cookies.

Most scrapers work without authentication, but LinkedIn requires an active session cookie (`li_at`) if you want to scrape professional profiles. Open your `.env` file and add your configuration details.

LINKEDIN_COOKIE=your_li_at_cookie_value
SCOUT_PROXY=http://user:pass@host:port

3. Run the Tool

Launch the interactive CLI interface.

Start the interactive Scout command-line interface to begin scraping and enriching leads:

python scout.py
python scout.py --verbose

Verification and Troubleshooting

Confirm successful execution and handle common issues.

Verification Steps

If you encounter rate limits or connection blocks, consider using the `--verbose` flag for debug logging, or configure proxy rotation in your environment file.

Sources and verification

Verify before publishing