PDF Explore

PDF Explore is an Automation skill for Claude Code, published by xuzhougeng in wisp-science.

1K stars106 forkson xuzhougeng/wisp-scienceAdded 2026/08/21+1% in starsRepository updated 2026/08/21

agent-skillsai-agentai-assistantai-for-scienceai4sciencebioinformaticscomputational-biologydesktop-appllmlocal-firstmcpmodel-context-protocolpythonreproducible-researchresearch-assistantrstatsrustscientific-computingscientific-workflowtauri

Install in seconds

Install PDF Explore

Copy PDF Explore into your Claude Code skills folder. Run the command in your terminal, or review the source on GitHub before installing.

terminal

npx degit https://github.com/xuzhougeng/wisp-science/tree/main/skills/pdf-explore ~/.claude/skills/pdf-explore

Requires Node.js. Downloads this skill only — not the rest of the repository — into your Claude Code skills folder.

Without Node.js

git clone https://github.com/xuzhougeng/wisp-science.git

Clones the whole repository, then copy the skill’s own directory into your skills folder yourself.

In this catalog

Source file: skills/pdf-explore/SKILL.md in xuzhougeng/wisp-science
Installs to: ~/.claude/skills/pdf-explore
Collection: One of 25 skills cataloged from this repository
Category: Automation — 1523 skills

What PDF Explore does

PDF Explore reads PDFs page by page for summarizing sections, comparing parts, checking outlines, or extracting values from figures. It uses Python extraction and image rendering when a PDF has no text layer.

PDF Explore is cataloged under Automation on DirSkills. PDF Explore comes from a repository tagged agent-skills, ai-agent, ai-assistant, ai-for-science and ai4science.

Documentation

README

Excerpt

Read PDFs page-by-page, not wholesale

read chokes on PDF binary, and pasting a 50-page document costs 40K+ tokens. The sidecar parses once into the persistent Python kernel (memory + disk cached), after which you pull exactly the pages the question needs.

Setup, once per session: run the exec(...) line from the "Python Kernel Sidecar" section at the end of this skill's use_skill output. Definitions survive across cells until the kernel restarts. pypdfium2 is required (pillow too for image mode); if the first call raises ImportError, follow its hint and re-run.

Pick the entry point

This is the opening of the README. Read the full README on GitHub.

Commands PDF Explore provides

Slash commands named in this skill’s SKILL.md, listed in the order they first appear.

/compact

Frequently asked about PDF Explore

What else does xuzhougeng publish alongside PDF Explore?
PDF Explore is one of 25 skills that DirSkills catalogs from xuzhougeng/wisp-science, the repository it ships in. Its siblings there include Agent Infini, Bear Counter and Bear Map. Each one is a separate skill with its own page in this directory, installs the same way PDF Explore does, and is maintained by xuzhougeng in that same repository. The rest of the collection is listed on the xuzhougeng/wisp-science page.
How does PDF Explore compare to other Automation skills?
PDF Explore ranks #831 by stars among the 1523 Automation skills in this catalog. The most-starred ones next to it are Autonomous Loops, Autonomous Agent Harness and Automation Audit Ops. DirSkills ranks by the star count of the repository each skill ships in, so that order reflects how popular those repositories are rather than any review of PDF Explore against them. Open each page to compare what they document and how they install.