readwise-skill
A plugin for using Readwise and Reader in your AI agents. Works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop / Cowork, OpenAI Codex, OpenClaw, and other agent harnesses that support standalone skill zips.
It shines when working across your entire library - extracting quotes from transcripts, saving generated highlights across multiple sources, triaging your inbox, and connecting highlights across books.
Compared with the official Readwise MCP (docs, npm), this skill used 2.0x-9.4x fewer end-to-end tokens across four overlapping read-only tasks with GPT-5.4; the MCP benchmarked here is also read-only and highlights-only, so daily review, highlight CRUD, and Reader workflows are outside its coverage.
Cross-book comparison token shape
= non-tool tokens
# tool-result payload tokens
skill [===####] ~5.1k
mcp [==##########################] ~20.3k
advantage: 4.0x
What you can do
The basics work as you'd expect - search highlights, daily review, save articles. The interesting part is what becomes possible when your agent can read and write across your whole library.
Visualize the structure of a Paul Graham essay saved in Reader:
Save a video, extract quotes, and archive - all in one conversation:
> Save this to Reader: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfMAtaocvJw
Done. Saved "The third golden age of software engineering" to Reader.
> Get the transcript and suggest the most surprising quotes
Here are 3 quotes that challenge conventional thinking:
1. "Fear not, O developers. Your tools are changing, but your problems are not."
2. "We're not going to have fewer software engineers - we're going to have
more, doing things we couldn't imagine"
3. ...
> Save #1 and #2 to Readwise, then archive the video
Done. Saved 2 highlights to Readwise and archived the document in Reader.
Check your reading list:
> What are my latest unread Reader docs?
| Title | Source | Words | Progress |
|------------------------------------------------|------------------|------:|:--------:|
| Does AI already have human-level intelligence? | nature.com | 2,374 | 0% |
| Interpretability vs Neuroscience | colah.github.io | 1,394 | 0% |
| On neural scaling and the quanta hypothesis | ericjmichaud.com | 9,976 | 0% |
... (7 more)
Triage your feed, then save what matters:
> What are my latest RSS articles? Rank by novelty.
High novelty:
- The Yodogo Hijacking (historical narrative)
- My Enemy, The Leitmotif (music/aesthetics critique)
- The Church Of Interruption (attention/tech critique)
Low novelty:
- How Transformers Architecture Powers Modern LLMs
- A Guide to Effective Prompt Engineering
> Save #1 and #2 to Readwise
Done. Saved 2 highlights to Readwise.
> Pull my highlights from "Thinking in Systems" and create an Excalidraw
diagram of the key feedback loops
> Build me an interactive HTML demo of the reinforcing loops from chapter 3
using my highlights as source material
> Compare my highlights from "Meditations" and "Letters from a Stoic" -
where do Aurelius and Seneca agree? Where do they diverge?
Getting started
Set your Readwise access token (find it at https://readwise.io/access_token):
export READWISE_TOKEN=<your-token>
Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add ryanlyn/readwise-skill
/plugin install readwise@readwise-skill
Or store your token as a Claude Code secret so it persists across sessions.
Claude Desktop / Cowork
Install the plugin from the marketplace, then set READWISE_TOKEN. One option is to create a .env file in your project folder and open it in Claude Desktop / Cowork.
Standalone skill zips (Codex, OpenClaw, etc.)
Skill zips are published as CI artifacts on each push to main. Download the latest from the Actions tab or build from source (see Development).
Install one or both skills (they work independently). Set SKILL_HOME to whatever directory your agent harness uses for skills:
VERSION="0.2.1" # check CI artifacts for latest
# Set SKILL_HOME for your harness, e.g.:
# Codex: export SKILL_HOME="${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills"
# OpenClaw: export SKILL_HOME="$HOME/.openclaw/skills"
unzip -o "readwise-${VERSION}.zip" -d "$SKILL_HOME"
unzip -o "readwise-reader-${VERSION}.zip" -d "$SKILL_HOME"
Start a new session after installing.