diff --git a/api/internal/crawl/cmd/crawler/crawler.go b/api/internal/crawl/cmd/crawler/crawler.go
index d87c47996..aa231cdf4 100644
--- a/api/internal/crawl/cmd/crawler/crawler.go
+++ b/api/internal/crawl/cmd/crawler/crawler.go
@@ -191,7 +191,7 @@ func main() {
 		// this greatly reduces the time overhead of CrawlGithub.
 		getSeedDocsFunc()
 		for _, d := range seedDocs {
-			seen[d.ID()] = d.FileType
+			seen.Set(d.ID(), d.FileType)
 		}
 		crawler.CrawlGithub(ctx, crawlers, docConverter, indexFunc, seen)
 	case CrawlUser:
diff --git a/api/internal/crawl/utils/utils.go b/api/internal/crawl/utils/utils.go
index d6b6fab68..f79454003 100644
--- a/api/internal/crawl/utils/utils.go
+++ b/api/internal/crawl/utils/utils.go
@@ -1,21 +1,37 @@
 package utils
 
-type SeenMap map[string]string
+import "sync"
 
+type SeenMap struct {
+	data map[string]string
+	lock sync.RWMutex
+}
+
+// TODO: add lock to avoid race condition
 func (seen SeenMap) Seen(item string) bool {
-	_, ok := seen[item]
+	seen.lock.RLock()
+	_, ok := seen.data[item]
+	seen.lock.RUnlock()
 	return ok
 }
 
 func (seen SeenMap) Set(k, v string) {
-	seen[k] = v
+	seen.lock.Lock()
+	seen.data[k] = v
+	seen.lock.Unlock()
 }
 
 // The caller should make sure that key is in the map.
 func (seen SeenMap) Value(k string) string {
-	return seen[k]
+	seen.lock.RLock()
+	v := seen.data[k]
+	seen.lock.RUnlock()
+	return v
 }
 
 func NewSeenMap() SeenMap {
-	return make(map[string]string)
+	return SeenMap{
+		data: make(map[string]string),
+		lock: sync.RWMutex{},
+	}
 }