write-notes

A skill for Claude Code (and any other Agent Skills-compatible CLI) that turns lecture slide PDFs into a linked concept graph of Obsidian notes, plus a positioned .canvas view.

Install

Recommended — via the skills CLI

# Global install into ~/.claude/skills/
npx skills add p-2411/write-notes -g

# Or project-scoped (.claude/skills/ in the current project)
npx skills add p-2411/write-notes

This works across Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf, and the other 40+ agent CLIs the skills ecosystem supports.

Alternative — standalone installer

npx write-notes

Copies the skill to ~/.claude/skills/write-notes/.

Restart Claude Code (or run /reload-plugins) after installing to pick up the skill.

Usage

Ask Claude Code to process a lecture PDF:

Turn these lecture slides into Obsidian notes: ~/Desktop/03_DesignByContract.pdf

The skill will:

1. Ask for anything it needs (PDF path, vault root, canvas file) if not provided.
2. Extract text via pdftotext and grep-verify every candidate concept against the PDF.
3. Reject hallucinated concepts (topic-canonical material the slides didn't actually teach).
4. Draft one markdown note per verified concept, grouped into a folder per lecture topic: <Vault>/<Course>/Content/<Lecture-Topic>/<Concept>.md
5. Add nodes and edges to a .canvas — either one you specify, or <Vault>/<Course>.canvas by default.

What makes it different

Most "summarise this PDF" skills pad the output with canonical topics the lecture didn't cover. This skill enforces a strict rule: the PDF is the only source of concepts. Every concept must have a verbatim pdftotext quote as evidence, and the subagent's JSON output is rejected if it doesn't. See the skill's Do not invent concepts and Baseline failure on record sections for the full rationale.

Commands (standalone installer)

npx write-notes              # install
npx write-notes --force      # overwrite existing install
npx write-notes uninstall    # remove
npx write-notes --dir=PATH   # install to custom path
npx write-notes --help       # show help

Requirements

• Claude Code or another Agent Skills–compatible CLI.
• pdftotext — install via brew install poppler (macOS) or apt install poppler-utils (Linux).
• Node.js ≥ 18 (only for the installer; the skill itself has no Node dependency).

Layout

write-notes/
├── skills/
│   └── write-notes/
│       └── SKILL.md          ← the actual skill
├── bin/
│   └── install.js            ← standalone npx installer
├── package.json
├── README.md
└── LICENSE

License

MIT