wayback-oldest

Find the earliest archived version of a URL from the Wayback Machine. Use when the user wants to see the first capture, oldest archive, or original version of a webpage.

Find Oldest Wayback Machine Capture

Find the earliest archived snapshot of a URL from the Wayback Machine.

Usage

npx tsx scripts/oldest-newest.ts <url> --oldest-only [options]

Arguments

| Argument | Required | Description | |----------|----------|-------------| | url | Yes | The URL to search for |

Options

| Option | Description | |--------|-------------| | --full | Include archive URL in output | | --json | Output as JSON | | --no-cache | Bypass cache and fetch fresh data from API |

Output

Default (compact):

1998-12-01 08:00 (9200 days ago)

With --full:

📜 OLDEST:
  1998-12-01 08:00 (9200 days ago)
  https://web.archive.org/web/19981201080000id_/https://example.com

Script Execution

npx tsx scripts/oldest-newest.ts <url> --oldest-only

Run from the wayback plugin directory: ~/.claude/plugins/cache/wayback/

CDX API Endpoint

https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url={URL}&output=json&limit=1&filter=statuscode:200

The limit=1 parameter with default ascending sort returns the oldest capture first.

Caching

CDX API responses are cached for 1 hour. Use --no-cache to bypass.

Related Skills

wayback-newest - Find the most recent capture
wayback-range - Show both oldest and newest with archive span
wayback-list - List all snapshots with pagination