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mathiasandClaude Opus 5 2399ce68e5 chore(release): plugin.json version 0.20.0
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New skill (document-to-markdown) is a minor bump; the gate asserts
manifest/tag parity, so this lands with the tag.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-24 19:44:28 +02:00
mathiasandClaude Opus 5 46cbfc5967 feat(document-to-markdown): read the formats Read cannot open, locally
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Read handles PDF, images and notebooks natively; it does not open .docx,
.xlsx, .pptx, .epub, .msg or .zip. One uvx command does, with no install step
and no service.

Deliberately does NOT call docmark, which is the counter-intuitive part.
Measured 2026-09-24 on the same .docx, tables included: local markitdown and
the docmark service return byte-identical Markdown. Conversion of a
text-bearing document involves no LLM at all — the client is used only to
describe images. A network hop, a bearer token and an ingress for the same
bytes is not a trade worth making, and docmark is unreachable from a session
on koala anyway (ClusterIP, NetworkPolicy admits supervisor and dispatch only).

The boundary is measured, not asserted. The light extras register 18
converters; docmark registers 22. The difference is exactly DocxWithOCR,
PdfWithOCR, PptxWithOCR and XlsxWithOCR — the vision path, which is the one
case that must go through docmark because its sovereignty gate is the estate's
only audited route from an image to a model.

Two hazards the skill names because both bite silently:

  - markitdown[all] pulls az-doc-intel and az-content-understanding, Azure
    cloud converters. The extras list avoids having them on the path.
  - A blank template and a scanned PDF with no text layer both convert to zero
    characters and exit 0. Check the byte count; an empty success is the
    failure mode, and a confident summary of an unread document is the worst
    output this skill could produce.

Refs mathias/docmark#3

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-24 19:44:10 +02:00
mathias cf3abafc66 chore(release): plugin.json version 0.19.6
Skip-Release: true
2026-09-11 09:11:36 +00:00
3 changed files with 128 additions and 1 deletions
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@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
{ {
"name": "skills", "name": "skills",
"description": "Mathias's engineering skills library, plus the hooks and MCP servers that make it enforceable: TDD, clean code, debugging, specs, discovery, CI, and secret hygiene.", "description": "Mathias's engineering skills library, plus the hooks and MCP servers that make it enforceable: TDD, clean code, debugging, specs, discovery, CI, and secret hygiene.",
"version": "0.19.5", "version": "0.20.0",
"author": { "author": {
"name": "Mathias", "name": "Mathias",
"url": "https://git.d-ma.be/mathias" "url": "https://git.d-ma.be/mathias"
+1
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@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ the SKILL.md, not the table.
| `cognitive-load` | Cognitive complexity analysis (CLI score) | Identifying hotspots, before refactoring | claude-code, library | | `cognitive-load` | Cognitive complexity analysis (CLI score) | Identifying hotspots, before refactoring | claude-code, library |
| `debug` | Hypothesis-first debugging discipline | Any test failure or bug whose cause is not immediately obvious — or a bug report with no failure text, which this skill refuses rather than guesses at | claude-code, library | | `debug` | Hypothesis-first debugging discipline | Any test failure or bug whose cause is not immediately obvious — or a bug report with no failure text, which this skill refuses rather than guesses at | claude-code, library |
| `discovery-framing` | Problem-before-solution discovery/framing method | Framing/validating a problem before any solution; opportunity sizing | claude-code, library | | `discovery-framing` | Problem-before-solution discovery/framing method | Framing/validating a problem before any solution; opportunity sizing | claude-code, library |
| `document-to-markdown` | Read .docx/.xlsx/.pptx/.epub/.msg and other formats the Read tool cannot open | You need the contents of a binary document — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, EPUB, Outlook .msg, a zip of documents — and Read returns nothing useful | claude-code, library |
| `dream` | Reflective consolidation pass over an agent's memory directory | Pruning/merging memory files, rebuilding a memory index | claude-code, library, chat | | `dream` | Reflective consolidation pass over an agent's memory directory | Pruning/merging memory files, rebuilding a memory index | claude-code, library, chat |
| `experiment-spec` | Rigorous experiment spec — falsifiable hypothesis, quantitative acceptance, null-result protocol | Scoping a research/ML phase instead of a feature | claude-code, library | | `experiment-spec` | Rigorous experiment spec — falsifiable hypothesis, quantitative acceptance, null-result protocol | Scoping a research/ML phase instead of a feature | claude-code, library |
| `feature-spec` | Implementation-level feature spec (tighter than spec-driven-dev) | Scoping one feature inside an already-specced project | claude-code, library | | `feature-spec` | Implementation-level feature spec (tighter than spec-driven-dev) | Scoping one feature inside an already-specced project | claude-code, library |
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---
name: document-to-markdown
surfaces: [claude-code, library]
summary: "Read .docx/.xlsx/.pptx/.epub/.msg and other formats the Read tool cannot open"
use_when: "You need the contents of a binary document — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, EPUB, Outlook .msg, a zip of documents — and Read returns nothing useful"
description: Convert a binary document to Markdown locally with markitdown. No network, no LLM, safe for confidential material. Says when to use the docmark service instead.
---
# Document → Markdown
## Overview
`Read` opens PDFs, images and notebooks natively. It does **not** open `.docx`,
`.xlsx`, `.pptx`, `.epub`, `.msg` or `.zip`. This skill converts those locally.
One command, no install step, no service:
```bash
uvx --from 'markitdown[docx,pdf,pptx,xls,xlsx,outlook]' markitdown FILE > /tmp/out.md
```
First run downloads 38 packages (~10s); afterwards it is cached and instant.
## When to use this
You have a file on disk whose contents you need. That is the whole trigger.
## When NOT to use this — use `docmark` instead
Three cases, and only three:
1. **A scanned PDF or an image whose content is pixels, not text.** Extracting
that needs a vision model. The estate's only audited path from an image to a
model is `docmark`, whose `sovereignty.py` constructs an LLM client *only*
when `DOCMARK_VISION_MODEL` matches `koala/*` or `iguana/*`, and silently
degrades to metadata-only otherwise. `tests/test_sovereignty.py` is the
load-bearing guard. Do not reach for a cloud vision model directly; that is
the boundary the gate exists to hold.
2. **You are writing an in-cluster service** (something in `dispatch`,
`ingestion`, `cobalt-dingo`). Call `docmark` over MCP rather than bundling a
converter into each service. Its NetworkPolicy already admits `supervisor`
and `dispatch`.
3. **The file is larger than ~25 MiB** or you want the input/output caps
enforced centrally.
For a text-bearing document, the service returns **byte-identical output** to
the local command — measured 2026-09-24 on the same `.docx`, tables included.
A network hop, a bearer token and an ingress for the same bytes is not a
trade worth making.
## Confidential material
**Conversion is local and involves no LLM.** `markitdown` uses an LLM client
only to describe images; with none configured it does not call anything. No
bytes leave the machine.
That makes this safe for client material, unlike anything that routes through a
model. Two cautions:
- **Do not install `markitdown[all]`.** It pulls `az-doc-intel` and
`az-content-understanding` — Azure cloud document-intelligence converters.
They need explicit endpoint configuration to activate, but the extras list
above avoids having them on the path at all.
- The output is a file like any other. If the source was confidential, so is
`/tmp/out.md` — and the usual rule applies: it must not reach an open-egress
sink (ADR-0014).
## Verify the conversion, do not assume it
The failure mode is **a successful exit with empty output**. A `.docx` template
with no body content converts to zero characters and exits 0; so does a scanned
PDF with no text layer. Both look like success.
```bash
uvx --from 'markitdown[docx,pdf,pptx,xls,xlsx,outlook]' markitdown FILE > /tmp/out.md
wc -c /tmp/out.md
```
If the byte count is 0 or implausibly small for the document's size, the
converter found no text layer — that is case 1 above, and it needs `docmark`
with a vision model, not a retry.
## What it converts
18 converters with the extras above:
```
Audio, BingSerp, Csv, Docx, Epub, Html, Image, Ipynb, OutlookMsg, Pdf,
PlainText, Pptx, Rss, Wikipedia, Xls, Xlsx, YouTube, Zip
```
`docmark` registers 22 — the same set plus `DocxWithOCR`, `PdfWithOCR`,
`PptxWithOCR`, `XlsxWithOCR`. **Those four are the entire difference**, and
they are exactly the vision path from case 1. Everything else is identical code
running in a different place.
## Reading the output
Convert to a file and `Read` it, rather than piping into the transcript —
a 200-page document produces a lot of Markdown and most of it will not be
what you needed. Convert, then grep or read the section you want.
## Provenance
`docmark` ADR-0013 (`mathias/infra docs/decisions/`) owns the service; this
skill is the local path. The split was decided in `mathias/docmark#3` on
measurement, not preference: three of docmark's four plausible consumers are
better served without it, and the fourth — vision under a sovereignty gate — is
why it exists.
## Escalation
Local, read-only, single command. Nothing here is handed back mid-task.
Stop and hand back when:
- **The output is empty or near-empty.** Do not retry, and do not guess at the
contents. Say which file, what the byte count was, and that it needs a vision
path — then either use `docmark` with a local vision model, or ask. A
confident summary of a document you could not read is the worst possible
output of this skill.
- **The document is client material and the task would send its contents
anywhere** — a commit message, an issue, a PR body, a cloud model. That is
ADR-0014's refusal, and it is not this skill's call to make.
- **The file is encrypted or password-protected.** markitdown will fail; asking
for the password is a human's decision, not a retry.