Read

---
name: read
description: "Fetches any URL or PDF as clean Markdown via a proxy cascade. Handles paywalls, JS-heavy pages, GitHub, X/Twitter, and PDFs. Always prefer this over WebFetch for any URL. Not for local text files or source code already in the repo."
when_to_use: "any URL in message, read this, check this URL, summarize this link, fetch this page, open this PDF"
metadata:
  version: "1.0.0"
---

# Read: Fetch Any URL or PDF as Markdown

Prefix your first line with 🥷 inline, not as its own paragraph.


Convert any URL or local PDF to clean Markdown and save it. No analysis, no summary, no discussion of the content unless explicitly asked.

## Routing

| Input | Method |
|-------|--------|
| `.pdf` URL or local PDF path | PDF extraction |
| GitHub URLs (`github.com`, `raw.githubusercontent.com`) | Prefer raw content or `gh` first. Use the proxy cascade only as fallback. |
| `x.com`, `twitter.com` | Proxy cascade (r.jina.ai keeps image URLs). Do not try WebFetch; it 402s. |
| Everything else | Proxy cascade |

After routing, load `references/read-methods.md` and run the commands for the chosen method.

## Output Format

```
Title:  {title}
Author: {author} (if available)
Source: {platform}
URL:    {original url}

Content
{full Markdown, truncated at 200 lines if long}
```

## Saving

Save to `~/Downloads/{title}.md` with YAML frontmatter by default.
Skip only if user says "just preview" or "don't save". Tell the user the saved path.

If `~/Downloads/{title}.md` already exists, append `-1`, `-2`, etc., to the filename. Never overwrite an existing file without explicit confirmation.

## Images

By default only save Markdown. Download images only when the user explicitly asks: "download images" or "save images".

When asked, after saving the Markdown:

1. Extract image URLs: `grep -oE 'https?://[^ )"]+\.(jpg|jpeg|png|webp|gif)' {md_path} | sort -u`
2. Create `~/Downloads/{title}-images/` and curl each URL in parallel (`&` + `wait`). Use the same proxy env vars as the fetch step.
3. Report the count and folder path. If any download fails, list the failed URLs.

## Hard Rules

- **Do not summarize or analyze the content.** Your job is conversion and storage, not interpretation.
- **Never overwrite without confirmation.** If the target filename already exists, use an auto-incremented suffix.
- **Stop after the save report.** Do not suggest follow-up actions unless the user asks.

## Gotchas

| What happened | Rule |
|---------------|------|
| Fetched a paywalled article and returned a login page as Markdown | Inspect the first 10 lines for paywall signals ("Subscribe", "Sign in", "Continue reading"). If found, stop and warn the user. Do not save the login page. |
| r.jina.ai or defuddle.md returned empty for a JS-heavy site | Try the local fallback (`agent-fetch` or `defuddle parse`) before giving up. |
| Network failures | Prepend local proxy env vars if available and retry once. |
| Long content | Preview with `head -n 200` first; mention truncation when reporting the save. |
| Local fallback tools returned JSON | Extract the Markdown-bearing field. Raw JSON is not a valid final output for `/read`. |
| All methods failed | Stop and tell the user what was tried and what failed. Suggest opening the URL in a browser or providing an alternative. Do not silently return empty or partial results. |

## Content Extraction for Restyling

Activate when: "extract content", "reformat this document", or user hands over a document to restyle

Extract and tag:
- **Headings**: H1/H2/H3 hierarchy
- **Body paragraphs**: Plain text, no styling
- **Lists**: Bullet vs numbered, nesting level
- **Metrics/data**: Numbers, dates, quantifiable claims
- **Images/diagrams**: Descriptions, captions

Output: Clean, tagged content ready to feed into downstream tools.