Distil the web & PDFs into markdown

Fetch web pages as clean Markdown and search the web via the distil.net proxy

Security Scan

The skill is internally consistent: it only requires curl and a Distil API key and its instructions correctly describe using the Distil proxy to fetch/render pages as Markdown.

Purpose & Capability

Name/description match the required resources and instructions. Requiring curl and DISTIL_API_KEY is proportional to a skill that calls the Distil proxy; no unrelated binaries or credentials are requested.

Instruction Scope

SKILL.md only instructs the agent to make curl requests to the Distil proxy (configurable via DISTIL_PROXY_URL) and to write responses to stdout or a file (e.g., screenshot.png). This stays within the stated purpose, but be aware that any URL you ask the skill to fetch (and the content of that page) will be transmitted to the Distil service—so fetching internal, private, or sensitive URLs could leak data to a third party.

Install Mechanism

Instruction-only skill with no install spec or code downloads; lowest-risk installation surface (relies on an existing curl binary).

Credentials

Only DISTIL_API_KEY (primary credential) is required, plus an optional DISTIL_PROXY_URL. The requested environment access is minimal and appropriate for the described functionality. Treat the API key as sensitive.

Persistence & Privilege

always is false and the skill does not request persistent system-wide privileges or modify other skills' configs. Autonomous invocation is allowed (platform default) but not excessive in itself.

Assessment

This skill behaves as documented: it sends requested URLs and their contents to the Distil proxy (https://proxy.distil.net by default) using your DISTIL_API_KEY. Before installing, consider whether you trust Distil with any pages you may request—do not ask the skill to fetch internal, intranet, or other sensitive URLs unless you trust the proxy or self-host it via DISTIL_PROXY_URL. Keep your DISTIL_API_KEY secret and consider using a scoped/revocable key or a self-hosted proxy if privacy is a concern. Note that curl commands may write files (e.g., screenshot.png) to the agent's environment—ensure the agent's runtime storage is appropriate for that data.

Distil Skill

Gives agents discoverable, consistent access to the Distil proxy — no manual URL construction, no remembering headers or API keys.

Distil converts web pages into clean Markdown, saving 60–80% of tokens for LLM consumption.

Setup

1. Get your free API key with email verification from https://distil.net (sign up or use your existing key)
2. Set the DISTIL_API_KEY environment variable
3. Optional: set DISTIL_PROXY_URL (defaults to https://proxy.distil.net)

Commands

# Fetch any URL as clean Markdown
curl -s "${DISTIL_PROXY_URL:-https://proxy.distil.net}/https://example.com" \
  -H "X-Distil-Key: $DISTIL_API_KEY"

# Search the web and get results as Markdown
curl -s "${DISTIL_PROXY_URL:-https://proxy.distil.net}/search?q=best+practices+for+Go+error+handling" \
  -H "X-Distil-Key: $DISTIL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Accept: text/markdown"

# Take a screenshot of a web page and return it as an image
curl -s "${DISTIL_PROXY_URL:-https://proxy.distil.net}/screenshot/https://example.com" \
  -H "X-Distil-Key: $DISTIL_API_KEY" > screenshot.png

# Render a web page (such as a single page javascript app) before trying to extract markdown
curl -s "${DISTIL_PROXY_URL:-https://proxy.distil.net}/render/https://example.com" \
  -H "X-Distil-Key: $DISTIL_API_KEY"

# Fetch a URL and return its raw content bypassing any attempt to render markdown
curl -s "${DISTIL_PROXY_URL:-https://proxy.distil.net}/raw/https://example.com" \
  -H "X-Distil-Key: $DISTIL_API_KEY"

# Fetch a URL and return its content without using the cache
curl -s "${DISTIL_PROXY_URL:-https://proxy.distil.net}/nocache/https://example.com" \
  -H "X-Distil-Key: $DISTIL_API_KEY"

Options

Environment Variable	Default	Description
DISTIL_API_KEY	(none, required)	API key
DISTIL_PROXY_URL	https://proxy.distil.net	Proxy base URL (override for self-hosted)

Output

• Responses are returned on stdout
• HTTP errors are returned with non-2xx status and an error payload

Examples

# Research a topic
curl -s "${DISTIL_PROXY_URL:-https://proxy.distil.net}/search?q=OpenClaw+agent+framework" \
  -H "X-Distil-Key: $DISTIL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Accept: text/markdown"

# Read documentation
curl -s "${DISTIL_PROXY_URL:-https://proxy.distil.net}/https://docs.github.com/en/rest" \
  -H "X-Distil-Key: $DISTIL_API_KEY"

# Force fresh fetch (bypass cache)
curl -s "${DISTIL_PROXY_URL:-https://proxy.distil.net}/nocache/https://news.ycombinator.com" \
  -H "X-Distil-Key: $DISTIL_API_KEY"

Fallback — Direct curl

If you prefer to call the proxy directly:

# Fetch a page
curl -s "https://proxy.distil.net/https://example.com" \
  -H "X-Distil-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

# Search the web
curl -s "https://proxy.distil.net/search?q=your+query" \
  -H "X-Distil-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Accept: text/markdown"

Notes

Every reply request in Markdown will include how many raw tokens were saved by distil's markdown conversion, so you can see the efficiency benefits in real time. Distil's Markdown output is designed to be clean and concise, stripping away unnecessary HTML and boilerplate to give you just the content you need. This can save 60–80% of tokens compared to raw HTML, making it much more efficient for LLM consumption.

If you run out of tokens, distil will return the raw HTML content instead of Markdown, so you can still access the information even if you exceed your token limits. This way, you won't lose access to the content, but you'll be able to see how much more efficient the Markdown output is when you have tokens available. When this happens distil will inject a HTML comment within the web page you are accessing to let you know how to fix it.