Claude Code Plugin

Content to Skill

Your books, as agent skills

Turn any book into structured knowledge your AI assistant can use, whenever you need it.

Chapter I

The Problem

You read a great technical book. Two weeks later, you remember the gist but none of the specifics. When you need it most, debugging a system, choosing an architecture, writing a feature, the knowledge is gone. Your AI agent has never read it at all.

Chapter II

The Solution

Content-to-Skill doesn't summarize. It distills. The result is a personal skill your agent can load on demand: a 30-second overview, a situational index for the right concept at the right time, and deep reference dives when you need the full picture.

Chapter III

The Proof

The Software Engineer's Guidebook

Pages

~400

Time

~42 minutes

Cost

~$25 (Opus)

Output

A complete knowledge base from a single book

Cost scales roughly with page count. Shorter books cost proportionally less. Using Sonnet instead of Opus reduces cost by approximately 80%.

Chapter IV

The Output

Here's what the plugin produced from The Software Engineer's Guidebook, a real 400-page book, processed in 42 minutes.

30-Second Overview

## Level 1: 30-Second Reference

### The Core Framework
- Engineering careers reward intentional growth across
  technical, organizational, and business dimensions
- At every level, "getting things done", consistently
  shipping impactful work, is the universal currency
- The ratio of technical-to-organizational work shifts
  as you advance: juniors ship tasks, seniors ship
  independently, staff+ ensure organizations ship
- Career ownership is non-negotiable: maintain work logs,
  pace yourself, and make contributions visible

### Quick Lookup

| Situation             | Do This                    |
|-----------------------|----------------------------|
| Preparing for promo   | Produce → Organize → Pub   |
| Feeling burned out    | Switch to Coasting mode    |
| Starting new company  | Cost center or profit?     |
| Architecture decision | One-way or two-way door?   |
| Shipping to prod      | Staged rollouts + flags    |

Situational Index

## Level 2: Situational Index

### "I need to..."

| Goal                            | Reference                 |
|---------------------------------|---------------------------|
| Understand the career arc       | core-framework.md         |
| Ship more effectively           | getting-things-done.md    |
| Write better, readable code     | coding-and-quality.md     |
| Design a testing strategy       | testing-strategies.md     |
| Make architecture decisions     | software-architecture.md  |
| Lead a project as tech lead     | tech-lead-project-mgmt.md |
| Build reliable systems          | reliability-operations.md |

Chapter V

How It Works

A multi-pass extraction pipeline adapts to each book's genre, cross-references every chapter, and produces 8-15 structured reference files.

Configure

You choose citation style and genre. Extraction adapts to the book's form

Chunk

Splits your PDF or EPUB into sections sized for processing

Extract

Multiple AI readers work through sections simultaneously, pulling out key ideas, frameworks, and examples

Cross-Reference

A dedicated pass reads every extraction and builds a unified knowledge map, terminology index, and chapter spine

Distill

Each chunk is re-evaluated against the whole book. Surface observations are cut, causal chains deepened

Convert

A complete knowledge base with layered detail: 30-second overview, situational index, deep concept dives

Cover

Fetches real cover art from Goodreads and Open Library, or generates one

Install

Adds to your personal library. Browse with /library, load on demand with /library <name>

Input

PDF / EPUB / Directory

File or Dir?

PDF / EPUB Directory

Book Pipeline

Chunk Document

chunk_document.ts
Split into N-page segments

Parallel

Pass 1: Extract

research-prompt.md
5 chunks per batch

Single

Pass 2: Cross-Reference

running-context.md
terminology.md · book-spine.md

Parallel

Pass 3: Distill

Genre-specific criteria
distilled-chunk-NNN.md

Synthesize

EXTRACTION_SUMMARY.md

Repo Pipeline

Detect Exercises

detect_exercises.ts
exercises_manifest.json

Parallel

Extract Exercises

code-extraction-prompt.md
problem → solution diffs

Synthesize

Reference files per module

Convert to Skill

Output

Skill Package

SKILL.md + references/ + book.json
8-15 reference files · 3-level progressive disclosure

Fetch Cover Image

Goodreads → Open Library → Programmatic
fetch_cover.ts · generate_covers.ts

Install Skill

library | project | personal
library_index.ts rebuilds index.json

Library System

/library <name>

~/.claude/library/books/<name>/
list · load · search · migrate · rebuild

Chapter VI

Get Started

Content-to-Skill runs inside Claude Code, Anthropic's AI coding assistant. If you already have it installed, you're two commands away.

Prerequisites

Claude Code Node.js 18+

Install

Add plugin

/plugin marketplace add chrislacey89/content-to-skill

Install

/plugin install content-to-skill@chrislacey89-content-to-skill

Quick Start

Convert a book

/content-to-skill path/to/book.pdf --name my-book

Browse your library

/library

Load a skill

/library my-book

Chapter VII

Your Library

Library View is a companion web app that lets you browse your converted books visually — cover art, search, and quick access to every skill in your collection.

View Library App