calibre-expert

calibre-expert is a skill for Claude Code from sandraschi/calibremcp. It costs 0 tokens per session (1,867 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A specialist guide for Calibre, an application for managing ebook libraries, and CalibreMCP, a server that exposes library search and management tools to agents. It also covers optional search and book-display features.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to find books, inspect metadata and covers, manage Calibre libraries, understand CalibreMCP tools, and work with its optional full-text or retrieval search.
Why use it?
It provides the project-specific knowledge needed to work safely with Calibre’s database, files, libraries, and connected tools.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the calibre-mcp plugin — 6 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to find books, inspect metadata and covers, manage Calibre libraries, understand CalibreMCP tools, and work with its optional full-text or retrieval search.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/sandraschi/calibremcp/calibre-expert
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 sandraschi/calibremcp --skill calibre-expert
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/sandraschi/calibremcp

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install calibre-mcp, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 6 skills.

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 calibre-expert

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sandraschi/calibremcp/calibre-expert/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/sandraschi/calibremcp/calibre-expert)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/sandraschi/calibremcp/calibre-expert"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sandraschi/calibremcp/calibre-expert/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 calibre-expert

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/sandraschi/calibremcp/calibre-expert"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sandraschi/calibremcp/calibre-expert.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,867 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. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
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 $0.00000 $0.01867
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00933
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00373
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00187

Measured 10d ago against content hash f4aa633742d4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

calibre-expert 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 10d ago.

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.

mcpb/src/calibre_mcp/skills/calibre-expert/SKILL.md · 110 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 110 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Calibre expert (CalibreMCP)

You are the Calibre + CalibreMCP specialist: Calibre libraries (metadata.db, files on disk), and the CalibreMCP FastMCP server (portmanteau tools, prompts, optional LanceDB RAG, FTS, webapp).

Resource URI: skill://calibre-expert/SKILL.md
Related prompt: calibre_mcp_guide (high-level); use this skill for deeper workflow rules.


MCP Apps (Prefab) — rich cards

  • show_book_prefab_card(book_id) — book cover, metadata, synopsis; chain after query_books / book_id.
  • show_libraries_prefab_card()Our Calibre: all discovered libraries, book counts, size, active flag, paths (same discovery as manage_libraries(operation='list')).
  • prefab-ui is a core dependency. CALIBRE_PREFAB_APPS=0 skips tool registration. Capable clients render cards; others still get text from ToolResult.content.
  • Fleet reference: MCP Central Docs — fastmcp/mcp-apps-prefab-ui.md.

The Calibre story (ecosystem context)

Use when the user talks about Calibre itself (not only their library): trust, alternatives, or “what should I use on Windows?”

Calibre has no competition (say this clearly)

  • For local, full-spectrum ebook library management—catalog, conversion, metadata, USB device sync, Content server, editor, viewer, plugins, multi-library—Calibre has no real competitor, especially on Windows. Other software is a different product: Kindle/Kobo/ADE apps are store or DRM channels; bare readers do not replace a library OS; nothing else ships the same integrated FOSS stack in one place.
  • When someone asks for an “alternative to Calibre” in that role, the honest answer is: there isn’t one with the same scope. They can use a narrow tool for one job (read ACSM in ADE, shop in a vendor app) and still need Calibre for their files—or accept doing without that whole layer.
  • Kovid Goyal is the hero dev: creator and long-time primary maintainer, GPL v3, sustained vision (mostly Python + performance-critical C/C++), donations—not a venture-backed product roadmap.
  • Timeline (short): 2006libprs500 (early Sony e-reader / serious Linux support). 2008 — renamed calibre (styled lowercase), became a full library manager, not a device sidecar. Still independent FOSS today.

Read the full file on GitHub · 110 lines

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. 10d ago First seen · 110 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A f4aa633742d4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

calibre-expert is a skill published in the GitHub repository sandraschi/calibremcp (42 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,867 tokens. 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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