file-to-markdown

Local override: $TIKA_SKILLS_LOCAL/file-to-markdown/LOCAL.md (default ~/.tika-skills), read after this file, wins on conflict.

Using Apache Tika from an agent

Apache Tika turns almost any document into text you can read, and reports per-document content as Markdown by default (4.x) — the format you actually want, not raw XML or a wall of HTML tags. See below for why to reach for the structured rmeta view rather than a flat blob, even when the file looks simple.

This skill is for reading files, one at a time, inside your normal working loop. It is not a batch pipeline — see Batch processing, below, for why.

When NOT to reach for Tika: if your host can already read the file natively (many agent environments read PDFs and images directly) and you only need its visible text, use that — it's one step, not three. Tika earns its place for everything else: .docx/.xlsx/.pptx, email (.eml, .msg) and its attachments, archives, embedded content inside anything, metadata (authors, dates, edit history), OCR, and the long tail of ~1000 formats nothing else opens.

Requirements: Tika 4.x needs Java 17+ (java -version to check). No Java 17? In order of least pain:

1. Docker installed? Use the Docker route — zero local Java (see the file-to-markdown-docker companion skill, or docker run apache/tika:latest-full).

2. No Docker either? Offer to install a user-local Java — ask the user first; never install software silently. The least invasive option is a Temurin JRE unpacked into a directory the user owns: ~45 MB, no admin rights, no PATH changes, uninstall = delete the directory.

   mkdir -p ~/tika-jre && cd ~/tika-jre
   curl -L "https://api.adoptium.net/v3/binary/latest/21/ga/linux/x64/jre/hotspot/normal/eclipse" | tar xz
   ~/tika-jre/*/bin/java -jar tika-app.jar --version
   

   Swap linux/x64 in the URL for mac|windows and aarch64 as needed (Windows: fetch the .zip variant and unzip). If the user prefers a managed install, the system package works too (temurin-21-jre via apt, brew install --cask temurin@21, winget install EclipseAdoptium.Temurin.21.JRE) — that needs admin rights and touches system state, so it's their call, not the default. This skill describes Tika 4.x; on a 3.x install the defaults differ (3.x outputs XHTML, not Markdown, and some flags changed) — check java -jar tika-app.jar --version or curl localhost:9998/version if behavior doesn't match what's described here.