name: read description: "Fetch any URL or PDF as clean Markdown (paywalls, JS pages, X/Twitter). Not for local repo files." when_to_use: "fetch URL, read this link, scrape page" metadata: version: "3.24.0"
Read: Fetch Any URL or PDF as Markdown
Prefix your first line with 🥷 inline, not as its own paragraph.
Convert any URL or local PDF to clean Markdown. No analysis, no summary, no discussion of the content unless explicitly asked after the fetch.
Routing
| Input | Method |
|---|---|
feishu.cn, larksuite.com |
Feishu API script |
mp.weixin.qq.com |
Proxy cascade first, built-in WeChat article script only if the proxies fail |
.pdf URL or local PDF path |
PDF extraction |
GitHub URLs (github.com, raw.githubusercontent.com) |
Prefer raw content or gh first. Use the proxy cascade only as fallback. |
x.com, twitter.com |
Proxy cascade (r.jina.ai keeps image URLs). Do not try WebFetch; it 402s. |
| Everything else | Proxy cascade |
After routing, load references/read-methods.md and run the commands for the chosen method.
Output Format
Title: {title}
Author: {author} (if available)
Source: {platform}
URL: {original url}
Content
{full Markdown, truncated at 200 lines if long}
Saving
Default: display only. Show the converted Markdown inline. Do not create a file.
Save to ~/Downloads/{title}.md with YAML frontmatter when any of these are true:
- User explicitly asks: "save", "download", "保存", "下载", "keep this"
- Called from within
/learn(Phase 1 expects a file to move) - User says "save" or "保存" after seeing the output (use conversation content, do not re-fetch)
When saving:
- If the file already exists, append
-1,-2, etc. Never overwrite without confirmation. - Tell the user the saved path.
When not saving:
- Do not mention that a file was not saved. Just show the content.
Images
By default only save Markdown. Download images only when the user explicitly asks: "download images", "save images", "带图", "下载图片", or similar.
When asked, after saving the Markdown:
- Extract image URLs:
grep -oE 'https?://[^ )"]+\.(jpg|jpeg|png|webp|gif)' {md_path} | sort -u - Create
~/Downloads/{title}-images/and curl each URL in parallel (&+wait). Use the same proxy env vars as the fetch step. - Report the count and folder path. If any download fails, list the failed URLs.
Hard Rules
- Do not summarize or analyze the content. Your job is conversion and storage, not interpretation.
- Never overwrite without confirmation. If the target filename already exists, use an auto-incremented suffix.
- Stop after the save report. Do not suggest follow-up actions ("Would you like me to summarize?", "Next, you could...") unless the user asks.
Gotchas
| What happened | Rule |
|---|---|
| Fetched a paywalled article and returned a login page as Markdown | Inspect the first 10 lines for paywall signals ("Subscribe", "Sign in", "Continue reading"). If found, stop and warn the user. Do not save the login page. |
| User said "read this" but meant "summarize and act on it" | Deliver the Markdown first, then ask what to do next. Do not save unless asked. |
| URL returned empty page or paywall with no content | Report the failure clearly: what was tried, what failed. Do not fabricate or guess the content. |
| r.jina.ai or defuddle.md returned empty for a JS-heavy site | Try the local fallback (agent-fetch or defuddle parse) before giving up. |
| Network failures | Prepend local proxy env vars if available and retry once. |
| Long content | Preview with head -n 200 first; mention truncation when reporting the save. |
| Local fallback tools returned JSON | Extract the Markdown-bearing field. Raw JSON is not a valid final output for /read. |
| All methods failed | Stop and tell the user what was tried and what failed. Suggest opening the URL in a browser or providing an alternative. Do not silently return empty or partial results. |
Content Extraction for Restyling
Activate when: "extract content", "reformat this document", or user hands over a document to restyle
Extract and tag:
- Headings: H1/H2/H3 hierarchy
- Body paragraphs: Plain text, no styling
- Lists: Bullet vs numbered, nesting level
- Metrics/data: Numbers, dates, quantifiable claims
- Images/diagrams: Descriptions, captions
Output: Clean, tagged content ready to feed into kami or other typesetting tools.