# book-to-skill

Builds an agent skill from a book or documentation folder, with chapter files and reference material. Useful when an agent needs to apply a source’s ideas during project work.

- plugin · `type=plugin` · Claude Code · ★ 28733
- Author: Alireza Rezvani
- License: MIT · policy=mirror · the beginning of the file is at the end of this page
- Source: https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills/tree/HEAD/engineering/book-to-skill
- Updated: 2026-10-23
- HTML: https://affpapa.org/en/nevibecode/plugins/book-to-skill

## What it does

The plugin extracts content from formats including PDF, EPUB, DOCX, HTML, Markdown, RST, AsciiDoc, RTF, and MOBI/AZW. It helps produce a core `SKILL.md`, chapter files, a topic index, glossary, patterns file, and decision cheatsheet. The agent can load relevant material as needed instead of keeping the entire source in context.

Included tools handle extraction, generated-skill checks, token-budget estimates, and packaging a compiled skill as a plugin. MOBI/AZW/AZW3 conversion requires Calibre’s `ebook-convert` on `PATH`. Optional packages can improve extraction, but the plugin does not install them automatically. The package emitter also checks for a rights basis before creating a shareable package.

Use `/cs-book-to-skill` to create a skill and `/cs-book-to-plugin` to package one. The budget estimator can conclude that a source is small enough to read directly, rather than convert.

## Install

### Claude Code (native platform)

**Plugin marketplace**
In the agent chat (not a shell):
```text
/plugin marketplace add alirezarezvani/claude-skills
```
In the agent chat (not a shell):
```text
/plugin install book-to-skill@claude-code-skills
```

## When to use it
- turn a book into a skill with chapter files
- compile internal documentation into an agent knowledge base
- estimate token costs before converting a source
- check a generated skill’s structure and references
- package a compiled skill as a plugin

## Example prompts
- Turn `~/books/thinking-in-systems.pdf` into a skill named `meadows-systems`.
- Build a skill called `internal-arch` from Markdown files in `./docs/architecture/` matching `*.md`.
- Package `~/.claude/skills/meadows-systems` as a plugin for the `engineering` domain.

## Source text · book-to-skill · MIT

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BEGIN THIRD-PARTY FILE 83777b38056a942d
````text
# book-to-skill

Turn a book, a documentation folder, or a pile of specs into an agent skill.

A source goes in. What comes out is a knowledge base the agent loads on demand: a small
resident core with the author's named frameworks and a topic index, one chapter file per
chapter, a glossary, a patterns file, and a decision cheatsheet. The agent reads the core, then
one chapter — never the whole source again.

Derived from [virgiliojr94/book-to-skill](https://github.com/virgiliojr94/book-to-skill) (MIT).
See **Deviations from upstream** below for the authoritative list of what changed.

---

## What it produces

| File | Contents | Budget |
|------|----------|--------|
| `SKILL.md` | Core frameworks + chapter index + topic index | < 4,000 tokens, resident |
| `chapters/chNN-*.md` | One summary per chapter | 800–3,000 tokens, on demand |
| `glossary.md` | Every significant term, alphabetized, with chapter | < 1,500 tokens |
| `patterns.md` | Techniques and design patterns with trade-offs | < 2,000 tokens |
| `cheatsheet.md` | Decision rules, thresholds, trade-off matrices | < 1,200 tokens |

Formats: PDF, EPUB, DOCX, HTML, Markdown, plain text, reStructuredText, AsciiDoc, RTF, and
MOBI/AZW/AZW3 with Calibre.

---

## Install

Already in this repository. Install as a marketplace plugin:

```
/plugin install book-to-skill@claude-code-skills
```

Or use the tools directly — they are self-contained under
`skills/book-to-skill/scripts/`.

**Dependencies:** none required. Every format degrades to a standard-library parser except
MOBI/AZW/AZW3, which need Calibre's `ebook-convert` on PATH. Optional packages
(`docling`, `pypdf`, `pdfminer.six`, `ebooklib`, `beautifulsoup4`, `python-docx`, `striprtf`)
raise extraction quality where installed; Poppler's `pdftotext` is the fastest PDF path.
Nothing is installed implicitly — run `extract_document.py --check` to see what is present and
get the exact install command.

---

## Use

```
/cs-book-to-skill ~/books/thinking-in-systems.pdf meadows-systems
/cs-book-to-skill ./docs/architecture/ '*.md' internal-arch
/cs-book-to-plugin ~/.claude/skills/meadows-systems --domain engineering
```

Or drive the tools yourself:

```bash
SKILL_ROOT=engineering/book-to-skill/skills/book-to-skill
WORKDIR=$(mktemp -d)     # or omit --workdir and capture the path the tool prints
SLUG=<author-lastname>-<concept>

python3 "$SKILL_ROOT/scripts/extract_document.py" BOOK.pdf --mode technical --workdir "$WORKDIR"
python3 "$SKILL_ROOT/scripts/token_budget_estimator.py" --full-text "$WORKDIR/full_text.txt"
# ... agent generates the skill ...
python3 "$SKILL_ROOT/scripts/book_skill_validator.py" ~/.claude/skills/"$SLUG"
python3 "$SKILL_ROOT/scripts/skill_plugin_emitter.py" --skill-dir ~/.claude/skills/"$SLUG" \
    --dest ./engineering --dry-run
```

Every tool supports `--help`, `--sample` and `--output json`.

---

## Tools

| Tool | Does |
|------|------|
| `extract_document.py` | Multi-format extraction → `full_text.txt` + `metadata.json`. Strips invisible Unicode, blocks DOCX entity expansion, detects chapters across Latin, Roman, Chinese, Thai and Korean heading styles. `--check` reports the environment. |
| `book_skill_validator.py` | Four check families over a generated skill — **frontmatter** (host-lens rules), **safety** (injection phrasing, invisible Unicode, authority grants), **budget** (token caps), **index** (dead links, unindexed chapters, dangling topic refs). Errors block; `--strict` promotes warnings. |
| `token_budget_estimator.py` | Pre-flight: models context-dump vs. discovery-loop vs. compiled-skill cost on this source's real chapter sizes and prints a worth-converting verdict. Post-flight: file-by-file budget audit. |
| `skill_plugin_emitter.py` | Wraps a compiled skill as a claude-skills plugin (manifest + agent + command + README) and prints the marketplace entry. Refuses to emit a shareable package without a rights basis. |

---

## Why the tokens matter

A live document-reading agent pays a **discovery loop tax**: it reads the table of contents,
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First 4065 of 22082 bytes. © Alireza Rezvani · MIT · https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills/tree/HEAD/engineering/book-to-skill

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---
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