Readwise Official

Access your Readwise highlights and Reader documents from the command line. Search, read, organize, and manage your entire reading library.

Security Scan

The skill's requirements and instructions align with its Readwise CLI purpose; it asks the user for a Readwise access token and relies on the readwise binary, which is expected and proportional.

Purpose & Capability

Name/description say 'Readwise CLI' and the skill only requires the readwise CLI and documents how to use it. Required binary (readwise) and the documented commands are coherent with the stated purpose.

Instruction Scope

SKILL.md confines actions to invoking the readwise CLI, installing the CLI, and prompting for a Readwise access token. It does not instruct reading unrelated files, environment variables, or sending data to unexpected endpoints.

Install Mechanism

No formal install spec is provided (instruction-only). The doc suggests npm install -g @readwise/cli, which is a reasonable, common install path but performs a global npm install (writes to disk, may require elevated permissions). This is expected but worth noting since the skill lacks an automated, verifiable install spec or homepage/source metadata.

Credentials

The skill does not declare required env vars, but instructs the agent to ask the user for their Readwise access token and run readwise login-with-token. Requesting that token is appropriate for the stated functionality; however the skill does not formally declare it as a required credential in metadata, and the user should be aware they'll need to provide the access token interactively.

Persistence & Privilege

always is false and there are no config paths or other privileges requested. The skill does not request permanent presence or modify other skills/config; autonomous invocation is allowed (platform default) and appropriate for a CLI integration.

Assessment

This skill appears to be what it claims: it calls the official Readwise CLI to access your highlights and Reader. Before installing or using it: (1) confirm you want the agent to have access to your Readwise data — the agent will ask you to paste an access token to authenticate. Only paste the token into the platform's secure prompt; do not share it in chat logs or public places. (2) Verify the npm package @readwise/cli on the npm registry (author, downloads, repository) since the skill metadata lacks a homepage/source. (3) Note that 'npm install -g' writes files system-wide and may require privileges. (4) If you prefer tighter control, create a limited-scope Readwise token (if supported) or use a separate account for automation. If you want, I can list the exact commands the agent will run or help you check the npm package provenance.

Readwise CLI

Use the readwise command to access the user's Readwise highlights and Reader documents. Readwise has two products:

• Readwise — highlights from books, articles, podcasts, and more. Includes daily review and spaced repetition.
• Reader — a read-later app for saving and reading articles, PDFs, EPUBs, RSS feeds, emails, tweets, and videos.

Setup

If readwise is not installed:

npm install -g @readwise/cli

If not authenticated, ask the user for their Readwise access token (they can get one at https://readwise.io/access_token), then run:

readwise login-with-token <token>

Discovering Commands

Every command supports --help for full option details:

readwise --help
readwise reader-search-documents --help
readwise readwise-list-highlights --help

Add --json to any command for machine-readable output. Use --refresh to force-refresh cached data.

Reader Commands

Searching and browsing documents

# Semantic search across all saved documents
readwise reader-search-documents --query "spaced repetition"

# Search with filters — by category, location, author, date range, tags
readwise reader-search-documents --query "machine learning" --category-in article --location-in later,shortlist

# List recent inbox items with minimal fields (saves tokens)
readwise reader-list-documents --location new --limit 10 --response-fields title,author,summary,word_count,category

# List archived articles by a specific tag
readwise reader-list-documents --location archive --tag "research" --category article

# List unseen documents
readwise reader-list-documents --location new --seen false

Reader locations: new (inbox), later, shortlist, archive, feed. When the user says "inbox", use new.

Reading document content

# Get full document details including Markdown content
readwise reader-get-document-details --document-id <id>

# Get all highlights on a document
readwise reader-get-document-highlights --document-id <id>

Saving and creating

# Save a URL — Reader scrapes it automatically
readwise reader-create-document --url "https://example.com/article"

# Save with metadata and tags
readwise reader-create-document --url "https://example.com" --title "My Title" --tags research,important

# Save raw content (provide a unique URL as identifier)
readwise reader-create-document --title "Meeting Notes" --markdown "# Notes from today..." --url "https://me.com#notes-2024"

# Highlight a passage (html-content must match the document's HTML exactly)
readwise reader-create-highlight --document-id <id> --html-content "<p>The key passage</p>" --note "Connects to..."

Organizing

# Move documents between locations (max 50 per call)
readwise reader-move-documents --document-ids <id1>,<id2> --location archive

# Bulk mark as seen
readwise reader-bulk-edit-document-metadata --documents '[{"document_id": "<id>", "seen": true}]'

# Tag management
readwise reader-list-tags
readwise reader-add-tags-to-document --document-id <id> --tag-names important,research
readwise reader-remove-tags-from-document --document-id <id> --tag-names old-tag

# Highlight tags and notes
readwise reader-add-tags-to-highlight --document-id <id> --highlight-document-id <hid> --tag-names concept
readwise reader-set-highlight-notes --document-id <id> --highlight-document-id <hid> --notes "My note"

Exporting

# Export all documents as Markdown ZIP (async — poll for completion)
readwise reader-export-documents
readwise reader-get-export-documents-status --export-id <id>

# Delta export — only docs updated since last export
readwise reader-export-documents --since-updated "2024-01-01T00:00:00Z"

Readwise Commands

Searching and browsing highlights

# Semantic search across all highlights (books, articles, podcasts, etc.)
readwise readwise-search-highlights --vector-search-term "learning techniques"

# List recent highlights
readwise readwise-list-highlights --page-size 20

# Highlights from a specific book
readwise readwise-list-highlights --book-id <id>

# Highlights from the last month
readwise readwise-list-highlights --highlighted-at-gt "2024-06-01T00:00:00Z"

Creating and editing highlights

# Create a highlight (goes into a book matched by title/author, or "Quotes" if no title)
readwise readwise-create-highlights --highlights '[{"text": "The key insight", "title": "Book Title", "author": "Author Name"}]'

# Update a highlight — change text, add note, manage tags, set color
readwise readwise-update-highlight --highlight-id <id> --note "Updated note" --add-tags concept,review --color blue

# Delete a highlight
readwise readwise-delete-highlight --highlight-id <id>

Daily review

# Get today's spaced repetition review with highlights and interactive review URL
readwise readwise-get-daily-review

Example Workflows

Triage the inbox: List recent saves, read each one, decide what's worth the user's time, and move to the right place.

readwise reader-list-documents --location new --limit 10 --response-fields title,author,summary,word_count,category,saved_at
readwise reader-get-document-details --document-id <id>
readwise reader-move-documents --document-ids <id> --location later

Search across everything: Search both Reader documents and Readwise highlights in parallel to find everything on a topic.

readwise reader-search-documents --query "spaced repetition"
readwise readwise-search-highlights --vector-search-term "spaced repetition"

Quiz on a recent read: Find recently finished documents, pick one, fetch its content and highlights, then quiz the user on what they read.

readwise reader-list-documents --location archive --limit 10 --response-fields title,author,summary,word_count
readwise reader-get-document-details --document-id <id>
readwise reader-get-document-highlights --document-id <id>

Catch up on RSS: Browse recent feed items, surface the best ones, mark the rest as seen.

readwise reader-list-documents --location feed --limit 20 --response-fields title,author,summary,word_count,site_name
readwise reader-bulk-edit-document-metadata --documents '[{"document_id": "<id>", "seen": true}]'
readwise reader-move-documents --document-ids <id> --location later

Save and annotate: Save a URL, highlight key passages, and organize with tags.

readwise reader-create-document --url "https://example.com/article" --tags research
readwise reader-create-highlight --document-id <id> --html-content "<p>Key passage</p>" --note "This connects to..."
readwise reader-add-tags-to-document --document-id <id> --tag-names important,research