Convert Technical Books and Specs into Agent Skills with book-to-skill
book-to-skill is a CLI tool that converts technical PDFs, EPUBs, and documentation folders into structured Agent Skills for Claude Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, and Amp. It compiles books into an indexed core and chapter files, reducing runtime context usage by 24x to 51x.
Impact: High
Why it matters
By compiling long technical texts into structured agent skills on disk, book-to-skill eliminates runtime context dumping and multi-hop discovery loops, lowering token overhead by up to 51x.
TL;DR
- 01book-to-skill compiles documentation and books into structured Agent Skills.
- 02Reduces runtime token consumption by 24x to 51x compared to full-context dumping.
- 03Supports Claude Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, and Amp.
Key facts
- Token context reduction
- 24x to 51x vs context dump
- Estimated conversion cost
- ~$1.00 per book on Claude Sonnet 4.5
- Supported agent hosts
- Claude Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, Amp
On-Demand Knowledge Extraction
book-to-skill compiles technical books, PDFs, EPUBs, and markdown folders into agent skills adhering to the open Agent Skills standard. Instead of injecting whole books into context during reasoning, the CLI generates a resident SKILL.md containing key terminology, design patterns, and decision rules, alongside auto-segmented chapter files. Supported hosts include Claude Code (~/.claude/skills/), GitHub Copilot CLI (~/.copilot/skills/), and Amp (~/.agents/skills/).
Context Cost Benchmarks
On Claude Sonnet 4.5 ($3/$15 per MTok), one-pass compilation costs roughly $1.00 per book. Compared to context dumping, reading pre-compiled skills reduces runtime context footprint by 24x to 51x (from 175,000 tokens down to ~5,000 resident tokens plus loaded sub-chapters). Extraction tools automatically pick Docling for markdown tables and code blocks or pdftotext for text-heavy prose.
Try it in 2 minutes
book-to-skill ./my-book.pdf project-knowledgebash
✓ When to use
- When you reference large technical books, specs, or multi-file documentation repositories repeatedly while using AI coding agents.
✕ When NOT to use
- When working with brief, single-page notes that fit easily into normal context without navigation costs.
What to do today
- Run book-to-skill on your local technical PDFs or documentation folders to generate Agent Skills.
- Add the generated skills directory to Claude Code or Copilot CLI configuration.
Sources