Flatfish

Historical document analysis CLI - Extract, analyze, and present handwritten text from document images.

Features

• 📜 Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) - Extract text from historical document images
• 🏷️ Named Entity Recognition - Identify people, places, dates, and more with contextual descriptions
• 📊 AI-Powered Summaries - Generate timelines, track changes, and suggest research questions
• 🌐 Static Website Builder - Create searchable, browsable document collections

Installation

pip install flatfish

Quick Start

# Initialize a new project
flatfish init

# Edit configuration
nano flatfish.yaml
nano .env

# Validate setup
flatfish validate

# Process documents
flatfish process

# Preview the site
flatfish publish

Configuration

flatfish.yaml

dataset:
  source: "username/dataset-name"
  splits:
    - "train"
  image_column: "image"

processing:
  extract_entities: true
  entity_context: true

summary:
  enabled: true
  model: "qwen-vl-max"

website:
  title: "Document Collection"
  password: "changeme"

.env

HUGGINGFACE_TOKEN=hf_xxxxxxxxxxxxx
DASHSCOPE_API_KEY=sk-xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Commands

Deployment .

Deploy your site to Netlify:

# Install netlify-python
pip install netlify-python

# Set your Netlify token (get from https://app.netlify.com/user/applications)
export NETLIFY_TOKEN=your-token
export NETLIFY_SITE_ID=your-site-id

# Deploy a draft preview
flatfish deploy

# Deploy to production
flatfish deploy --prod

# Specify a site ID directly
flatfish deploy --prod --site your-site-id

Output

project/
├── transcriptions/     # Extracted text files
├── entities/           # Entity JSON files
├── summaries/          # AI-generated summaries
└── _site/              # Built static website

License

MIT

Disclosure of Delegation to Generative AI

The authors declare the use of generative AI in the research and writing process. According to the GAIDeT taxonomy (2025), the following tasks were delegated to GAI tools under full human supervision:

• Code generation
• Code optimization

The GAI tool used was: Claude Sonnet. Responsibility for the final manuscript lies entirely with the authors. GAI tools are not listed as authors and do not bear responsibility for the final outcomes. Declaration submitted by: Andrew Janco