NYT Crossword Stats Scraper

Scrape your NYT crossword puzzle times into a CSV.

Usage

node index.js --key <jwt key> --start 2018-01-01 --end 2018-12-31 --out results.csv

--key

Required. A working JSON Web Token (JWT) from your NYT login (see below)

--start

Required. The date to start pulling stats, formatted as yyyy-mm-dd.

--end

The date to stop pulling stats. Default is today.

--out

Specify output file. Default is results.csv.

Finding your JWT

Your JWT can be found by inspecting your network requests while logged in to the web version of the New York Times Crossword website. Specific instructions differ by browser, but generally the steps are:

1. Visit nytimes.com/crossword with your browser's developer tools open to the Network tab.
2. Log in to your account, or refresh the page.
3. In the Network tab, filter the list of requests by json, and look for a request like progress.json, mini-stats.json, or hub.json.
4. Inspect the request parameters and look for the nyt-s param. This is your JWT key.