pdf-research

pdf-research is a skill for Claude Code from hongsw/plugin-for-claude-research. It costs 36 tokens per session (1,132 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A tool for indexing PDF files and searching their contents with meaning-aware queries, returning answers with citations.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to index a folder of PDFs, search the collection, and answer research questions based on the documents.
Why use it?
It avoids manually reading or keyword-searching large collections of PDFs when you need context from several documents.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin. Also seen: reads .claude/ paths; mentions Claude Code.

Part of the pdf-research plugin — 1 skill, 1 command shipped together

Good fit Use it to index a folder of PDFs, search the collection, and answer research questions based on the documents.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/hongsw/plugin-for-claude-research/pdf-research
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add hongsw/plugin-for-claude-research --skill pdf-research
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/hongsw/plugin-for-claude-research

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install pdf-research, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 1 skill, 1 command.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for pdf-research

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hongsw/plugin-for-claude-research/pdf-research/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/hongsw/plugin-for-claude-research/pdf-research)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/hongsw/plugin-for-claude-research/pdf-research"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hongsw/plugin-for-claude-research/pdf-research/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for pdf-research

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/hongsw/plugin-for-claude-research/pdf-research"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hongsw/plugin-for-claude-research/pdf-research.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 36 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,132 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00036 $0.01132
Opus 5 $0.00018 $0.00566
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00226
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00113

Measured 9d ago against content hash 5b9fea92b32e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

pdf-research scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 3 executable files (scripts/index_pdfs.py, scripts/pdf_research.py, scripts/search.py), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/pdf-research/skills/pdf-research/SKILL.md · 176 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 176 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

PDF Research Skill

LightRAG-based PDF document indexing and semantic search for Claude Code research workflows.

Quick Start (For Claude)

When user invokes /pdf-research, Claude should:

  1. Check status first: Run python pdf_research.py status to see current configuration
  2. Auto-index if requested: When user provides a PDF directory, run indexing automatically
  3. Search queries: Execute searches and return formatted results

Automatic Workflow

# Always run from scripts directory
cd ~/.claude/skills/pdf-research/scripts

# Check current status
python pdf_research.py status

# Index PDFs (when user provides a directory)
python pdf_research.py index /path/to/pdfs

# Search (single query)
python pdf_research.py search "user's question" --mode hybrid

# Interactive search session
python pdf_research.py search

Environment Requirements

Before running commands, ensure:

# Activate Python environment with dependencies
source /path/to/venv/bin/activate  # or use system Python with deps installed

# Ensure OpenAI API key is set
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

Core Capabilities

1. PDF Indexing (index command)

  • Extracts text from PDF documents using PyMuPDF
  • Creates semantic chunks with metadata
  • Builds knowledge graph with entities and relationships
  • Generates vector embeddings for semantic search
  • Supports incremental indexing (only new files)

2. Semantic Search (search command)

  • naive: Simple keyword matching
  • local: Focus on specific entities and details
  • global: Focus on broad themes and summaries
  • hybrid: Combined local + global (recommended)

3. Status Check (status command)

  • Shows current configuration
  • Lists indexed documents
  • Reports storage statistics

4. Configuration (config command)

  • Set default PDF directory
  • Set default storage directory
  • Set default search mode

Claude Integration Protocol

When User Says "Index PDFs" or Provides a Path

  1. Verify the path exists
  2. Run: python pdf_research.py index <path>
  3. Report results (documents indexed, chunks created, storage size)

Read the full file on GitHub · 176 lines

Files

What ships with it

9 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 176 lines · 36 tokens per session scan A 5b9fea92b32e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

pdf-research is a skill published in the GitHub repository hongsw/plugin-for-claude-research (20 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 36 tokens to every session and 1,132 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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