A comprehensive CLI-based skill to manage Readwise highlights, books, daily reviews, and Reader save-for-later documents.
Install & Download
1. ClawHub CLI
The fastest way to install a skill directly from the registry.
npx clawhub@latest install readwise-api
2. Manual Installation
Copy the skill folder to one of these locations
~/.openclaw/skills/ <project>/skills/ Priority: Workspace > Local > Bundled
3. Prompt Installation
Copy this prompt to OpenClaw to install it automatically.
Help me install readwise-api using Clawhub. If Clawhub is not installed, install it first (npm i -g clawhub).
Prefer to download?
Get the raw skill files in a ZIP archive.
What is Readwise & Reader?
The Readwise skill is a powerful integration designed to bridge the gap between your reading habits and your AI-driven workflow. As a core part of the Openclaw Skills ecosystem, it provides a programmatic interface to both the Readwise highlights API and the Reader document management platform. This allows users to capture, organize, and retrieve information from articles, books, and newsletters without leaving their development environment.
By leveraging this skill, developers can automate the curation of their personal knowledge base. Whether you are archiving research papers for later review or programmatically fetching notes from a specific book, this tool streamlines the interaction with your digital library. It is an essential component for anyone looking to build a sophisticated information pipeline using Openclaw Skills.
Readwise & Reader Use Cases
- Saving research URLs and papers directly to your Reader inbox with custom tags for future study.
- Automating the retrieval of daily review highlights to maintain a continuous learning cycle.
- Searching through your entire library of saved articles and book notes using specific keywords or authors.
- Managing your reading queue by programmatically moving documents between the inbox, shortlist, and archive.
- Exporting highlights from specific sources to be used in technical documentation or AI-generated summaries.
How Readwise & Reader Works
- The user executes commands through the provided shell script wrapper which interfaces with the Readwise API.
- The skill utilizes the READWISE_TOKEN to authenticate requests to both Readwise v2 and Reader v3 endpoints.
- For document management, the skill communicates with Reader to save, update, or list articles based on location and tags.
- For highlight management, it fetches or creates data within the Readwise ecosystem, supporting specific filters like book IDs or updated dates.
- All results are returned as structured JSON, allowing for seamless integration with other tools in the Openclaw Skills collection.
Readwise & Reader Setup
To get started with this skill, you must first obtain an API token from your Readwise account at https://readwise.io/access_token. Once you have the token, set it as an environment variable in your terminal or configuration file:
export READWISE_TOKEN="your_api_token_here"
You can then run the bundled script to ensure everything is working correctly:
scripts/readwise.sh --pretty list --location later --limit 5
Readwise & Reader Data Schema & Taxonomy
The skill organizes data according to the Readwise and Reader taxonomies. Key data structures include:
| Data Type | Description | Supported Values |
|---|---|---|
| Reader Locations | Status of saved documents | new, later, shortlist, archive, feed |
| Source Categories | Origin of the highlight | books, articles, tweets, podcasts |
| Document Types | Format of the Reader item | article, email, rss, pdf, epub, tweet |
| Highlight Colors | Visual markers for notes | yellow, blue, pink, orange, green, purple |
All CLI responses are provided in JSON format, which includes fields for unique IDs, metadata, and timestamps for every document and highlight.
Readwise & Reader Advanced Features
- Bulk exporting of highlights filtered by specific date ranges or book IDs.
- Real-time document tagging and metadata updates for advanced organization.
- Seamless integration with daily review workflows to surface key insights automatically.
- Support for multi-category filtering across both books and articles.
- Enhanced search capabilities that span both highlight text and document titles within the Openclaw Skills framework.
SKILL.md
Loading
Related Openclaw Skills
Phoenix API Generator
Automate the creation of robust Phoenix JSON APIs including schemas, migrations, and tests using OpenAPI specs or natural language.
Oban Designer
A specialized AI skill for designing, implementing, and optimizing Oban-powered background jobs in Elixir applications.
Oban Designer
A specialized tool for designing, configuring, and implementing robust Oban-based background jobs and workers in Elixir applications.
Hacker News
A powerful CLI-driven interface to browse, search, and extract data from Hacker News without authentication.
China Economic News (CN Economy News)
An automated tool for fetching and filtering high-quality Chinese economic news and data from official government and media sources.
GuruWalk Free Tours
An AI agent skill to search and retrieve bookable free walking tours worldwide via the GuruWalk MCP server.
Featured*
