DEVONthink Skill

An agent skill for automating DEVONthink on macOS via JXA (JavaScript for Automation) and Python.

Features

• Record Management: Create, search, move, duplicate, replicate, delete records
• Content Operations: Read/update record content, rename, convert formats
• Organization: Tags, labels, ratings, flags, custom metadata
• Navigation: Browse databases, groups, selected records
• Web Import: Create records from URLs (Markdown, PDF, HTML, web archive)
• AI Features: Classification, similarity search, chat/summarization
• Bibliography Integration: Look up bibliography citation keys and find matching DEVONthink records

Installation

Claude Code

git clone https://github.com/TomBener/devonthink-skill.git ~/.claude/skills/devonthink

Codex

git clone https://github.com/TomBener/devonthink-skill.git ~/.codex/skills/devonthink

Requirements

• macOS with DEVONthink installed
• Python 3 (for bibliography lookup)
• Zotero JSON export (for bibliography features)

Usage Examples

JXA Operations

Ask Claude Code to:

• "Search DEVONthink for PDFs created this week"
• "Create a new markdown note in DEVONthink"
• "Move all tagged 'inbox' records to the Archive group"
• "Find similar documents to the selected record"

Bibliography Lookup

# Get citation key from file path
python3 devonthink/scripts/bib_lookup.py --path "/path/to/document.pdf"

# Get metadata by citation key
python3 devonthink/scripts/bib_lookup.py --citation-key "smith2024"

# Find DEVONthink records by citation key
python3 devonthink/scripts/bib_lookup.py --citation-key "smith2024" --find-devonthink

Note: Requires BIBLIOGRAPHY_JSON environment variable or --bib-json flag. See Configuration.

Skill Structure

devonthink/
├── SKILL.md                 # Main skill instructions
├── scripts/
│   └── bib_lookup.py        # Bibliography lookup script
└── references/
    └── jxa-api.md           # Complete JXA API reference

Configuration

Bibliography Path

The bibliography lookup script requires a Zotero JSON export. Configure it once via environment variable:

# Add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:
export BIBLIOGRAPHY_JSON="~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/pkm/bibliography.json"

# Reload shell:
source ~/.zshrc

Export from Zotero:

1. Select items or library
2. File → Export Library → CSL JSON
3. Save to a convenient location

Or override per-command:

python3 bib_lookup.py --citation-key "smith2024" --bib-json "~/other/bibliography.json"

Related Projects

• devonthink-mcp - MCP server for DEVONthink (this skill is based on its functionality)

License

MIT License - See LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please open an issue or PR.