ebooks-cli
Click on "Deploy Server".
Wait a few minutes for the server to deploy. Once ready, it will show a "Started" state.
In the chat, type
@followed by the MCP server name and your instructions, e.g., "@ebooks-cliadd ~/Downloads/dune.epub to my library and convert it to mobi"
That's it! The server will respond to your query, and you can continue using it as needed.
Here is a step-by-step guide with screenshots.
ebooks-cli
Private, self-hosted ebook library: stores, ingests, converts and serves books (API, OPDS, MCP) from hardware you own. Split from xteink, which keeps the e-reader/device side.
What you get
An agent-first CLI cited from teken (
afi-cli) — the runtime package has no third-party dependencies.A mesh identity —
culture.yaml(suffix+backend) and the matching resident prompt file (CLAUDE.md, since this template runsbackend: claude). The mesh resident is one of two separate selections over this clone — see Two selections, not one below.Four harness prompt files, one per agent harness, each read by exactly one of them (see Prompt files by harness below). All four harnesses are usable interactively regardless of which one
culture.yamlnames as the mesh resident.The canonical guildmaster skill kit (11 skills) under
.claude/skills/, vendored cite-don't-import. Seedocs/skill-sources.md.A build + deploy baseline — pytest, lint, the agent-first rubric gate, and PyPI Trusted Publishing wired into GitHub Actions.
Related MCP server: anna-book-search
Prompt files by harness
Four harnesses, four root files, no shared base — each file is read by exactly one harness:
Harness | File(s) |
Claude Code | |
Pi / associate | |
colleague | |
Qwen Code |
Claude Code — CLAUDE.md is the fullest write-up of the repo's
conventions; read it first.
Pi / associate — AGENTS.override.md replaces this directory's
AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md in Pi's context layer, so Pi does not inherit
CLAUDE.md. .pi/SYSTEM.md replaces Pi's default system prompt with the
non-coding associate identity (read/find/summarize only).
colleague — colleague's prompt cascade is AGENTS.md →
AGENTS.colleague.md → AGENTS.colleague.<model>.md. This repo ships only
the middle layer: there is no AGENTS.md (a shared base across harnesses was
considered and rejected) and no per-model override file.
Qwen Code — Qwen Code reads QWEN.md and AGENTS.md; since there is no
AGENTS.md, QWEN.md is its sole source of guidance.
There is intentionally no AGENTS.md at the root — each harness gets an
unrelated file rather than cascading from a shared base.
Two selections, not one
It is tempting to read "switch harness" as one decision. It is actually two, and this template exists partly to keep them separate:
The interactive harness — which binary you run (
claude,pi,colleague,qwen).cdinto the clone and run any of them; all four are live simultaneously, and none of them requires editing a file or flipping a switch. A harness can be force-selected for one invocation (e.g. a CI smoke check) without ever touchingculture.yaml— seedocs/automation-contract.md.The mesh resident — the single
backendculture.yamldeclares, which is what the Culture daemon starts and whatsteward doctorchecks.guild harness use <name>changes only this.
culture.yaml's backend affects (2) only. It never affects which harness
you can invoke interactively in (1). See
docs/harness-selection.md for the full
writeup, including who reads this config and why existing siblings are not
retrofitted by this arc.
Quickstart
uv sync
uv run pytest -n auto # run the test suite
uv run ebooks-cli whoami # identity from culture.yaml
uv run ebooks-cli learn # self-teaching prompt (add --json)
uv run teken cli doctor . --strict # the agent-first rubric gate CI runsCLI
Verb | What it does |
| Report this agent's nick, version, backend, and model from |
| Print a structured self-teaching prompt. |
| Markdown docs for any noun/verb path. |
| Read-only descriptive snapshot of the agent. |
| Check the agent-identity invariants (prompt-file-present, backend-consistency). |
| Describe the CLI surface itself. |
Every command supports --json. Results go to stdout, errors/diagnostics to
stderr (never mixed). Exit codes: 0 success, 1 user error, 2 environment
error, 3+ reserved.
Make it your own
Rename the package
ebooks_cli/and theebooks-cliCLI/dist name throughoutpyproject.toml, the package,tests/,sonar-project.properties, and thisREADME.md. The name is hard-coded in ~100 places, so list every occurrence first — see thegit grepdiscovery command inCLAUDE.md, the authoritative rename procedure.Edit
culture.yamlwith yoursuffixandbackend.Rewrite
CLAUDE.mdfor your agent and run/init. Rewrite the other three harness files (AGENTS.override.md+.pi/SYSTEM.md,AGENTS.colleague.md,QWEN.md) too if your agent uses those harnesses — don't let them drift out of sync withCLAUDE.md.Re-vendor only the skills you need from guildmaster (see
docs/skill-sources.md).
See CLAUDE.md for the full conventions (version-bump-every-PR,
the cicd PR lane, deploy setup).
License
Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE.
This server cannot be deployed
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