Book-to-Skill Converter
Converts books, documentation folders, and source collections (PDF, EPUB, DOCX, HTML, Markdown, RST, AsciiDoc, RTF, MOBI/AZW) into structured agent skills. It extracts named frameworks, principles, techniques, and anti-patterns into a master SKILL.md plus on-demand chapter files, a glossary, a patterns file, and a decision cheatsheet.
✨ What it does
- Extracts structure (frameworks, principles, techniques, anti-patterns) rather than summaries.
- Generates a master SKILL.md under 4,000 tokens with chapter and topic indexes.
- Creates per-chapter files, glossary, patterns file, and decision cheatsheet with token budgets.
- Supports multiple modes: full conversion, analyze-only, generate from analysis, update/fold-in, and plugin packaging.
- Includes pre-flight cost estimation and validation gates to ensure quality and safety.
- Preserves author precision and respects copyright with a rights gate for redistribution.
🎯 When to use it
- When you want to study a document with an agent and retain its frameworks for future use.
- When you need to apply an author's frameworks while working on related tasks.
- When turning internal docs or standards into a reusable knowledge base for an agent.
- When packaging a compiled book skill as a claude-skills plugin for sharing.
🚀 How to use
Trigger by providing one or more file paths to a book or documentation source, optionally with a mode instruction like 'analyze' or 'make it a plugin'. The skill runs a pipeline: extract text, estimate cost, analyze, generate files, validate, and optionally package. Inputs: source paths, content type (technical/text), purpose (reference/study), and skill name. Example prompts:
Convert this PDF book into a skill: /path/to/book.pdf
Analyze this documentation folder and show me an extraction report: /path/to/docs
📄 Output: A structured skill folder containing SKILL.md, chapters/, glossary.md, patterns.md, cheatsheet.md, and optionally a plugin package.
📦 Add this skill to Claude Code
# 1. Get the skills repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills /tmp/claude-skills
# 2. Copy this skill into your project (or ~/.claude/skills for all projects)
mkdir -p .claude/skills
cp -r /tmp/claude-skills/engineering/book-to-skill/skills/book-to-skill .claude/skills/book-to-skillSkill source: engineering/book-to-skill/skills/book-to-skill/SKILL.md
⚠️ Good to know
Requires the source files to be on disk; cannot convert sources you cannot show. Large sources over ~50k tokens are probed rather than fully read, and redistribution requires a stated rights basis.
❓ FAQ
What file formats are supported?
PDF, EPUB, DOCX, HTML, Markdown, RST, AsciiDoc, RTF, and MOBI/AZW are supported.
Can I convert a book I don't have as a file?
No, the skill only converts files already on disk; it does not web-scrape or reconstruct from memory.
What is the difference between reference and study depth?
Reference depth is lighter and cheaper; study depth roughly doubles generation cost and is only worth it if you intend to internalize the author's reasoning with real worked examples.
🤖 Overview, features, install steps and FAQ were generated from the project's SKILL.md on Sep 4, 2026. Always check the original source before running commands.