PDF Chat CLI

A simple command-line tool that lets you chat with a PDF using Claude.

Overview

PDFChat CLI allows you to:

• Load a PDF from a file path
• Ask questions about its content
• Get AI-generated answers grounded in the document

This is a lightweight implementation focused on simplicity and speed, using Claude’s context window instead of a full RAG pipeline.

Features

• Chat with any PDF via terminal
• Minimal setup and fast execution
• Uses .env for secure API key management
• Clean, typed Python codebase (mypy-compatible)

How It Works

1. Extracts text from the PDF
2. Sends the content to Claude
3. Maintains a conversation loop for Q&A

Note: For large PDFs, responses may degrade due to context limits.

Setup

Create a .env file in the project root:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

Installation

1. clone project
2. cd pdf_chat_cli
3. pip install poetry
4. poetry install

Usage

poetry run python -m src.main

Then start asking questions in the terminal.

Example

> What is the main topic of this document?
> Summarize chapter 2
> Who are the key authors mentioned?

Limitations

• No true retrieval (RAG) — entire document is sent to the model
• Large PDFs may exceed context limits
• No citations or source tracking

Future Improvements

• Add chunking + retrieval (RAG)
• Support multiple PDFs
• Add citations from source text
• Optional web or UI interface

Tech Stack

• Python 3.11+
• Claude (Anthropic API)
• PyMuPDF (PDF parsing)
• python-dotenv (env management)
• mypy (type checking)