paperpusher 0.1.0

The AI bureaucrat that fills forms so you don't have to (the `pencilpusher` Python package)

pencilpusher

The AI bureaucrat that fills forms so you don't have to.

Drop your documents into a folder. pencilpusher reads them, builds a personal + company knowledge wiki, and when you drop a form into the inbox — it fills it. PDFs, Word docs, government forms, company registrations. No re-typing, no re-extracting.

Built on Karpathy's LLM-wiki pattern + Microsoft MarkItDown for document conversion.

How it works

sources/                         wiki/                          inbox/ → outbox/
(drop your docs here)           (auto-built by LLM)            (drop forms → filled forms)

  passport.pdf     ──ingest──►  identity.md              ┐
  id_card.pdf      ──ingest──►  contacts.md              │
  pacra_printout   ──ingest──►  companies/acme.md        ├──►  Form10_filled.docx
  bank_letter.pdf  ──ingest──►  banking.md               │     KYC_filled.pdf
  company_reg.pdf  ──ingest──►  companies/mycorp.md      ┘

Three layers (Karpathy's architecture):

1. sources/ — drop your documents here (IDs, passports, company docs, bank letters)
2. wiki/ — LLM-maintained knowledge base (personal data + per-company pages)
3. inbox/outbox/ — drop forms to fill, get filled forms back

Quick start

# Install from source (PyPI release coming soon)
git clone https://github.com/Loodt/pencilpusher.git
cd pencilpusher
pip install -e .

# 1. Initialize your vault
pencilpusher init

# 2. Drop documents into ~/.pencilpusher/sources/
#    (IDs, passports, company registrations, bank letters, etc.)

# 3. Build your knowledge wiki
pencilpusher ingest-all

# 4. Check what it extracted
pencilpusher show identity
pencilpusher show companies/acme

# 5. Drop forms into ~/.pencilpusher/inbox/

# 6. Fill them all!
pencilpusher fill-all

Or fill individual files:

pencilpusher ingest passport.pdf
pencilpusher fill application.docx -o filled.docx

Features

• Folder-based workflow — drop docs in, get filled forms out
• PDF forms — AcroForm fields (exact fill) and flat PDFs (text position detection)
• Word docs — SDT content controls (zipfile+lxml), table cells, placeholders
• MarkItDown powered — converts any document to Markdown (cheaper than vision API)
• Company pages — auto-creates per-company wiki pages from PACRA/CIPC printouts
• Smart matching — Claude matches "Applicant Full Name" → your name from the wiki
• Style preservation — fills values without touching fonts, sizes, colors, or layout
• Manifest tracking — skips already-ingested files automatically

Real-world tested

Successfully produced a 10-document Zambian PACRA compliance package:

• 4 filled PACRA forms (Form 10, 20, 22, 24)
• 6 supporting documents (board resolution, notices, minutes, consent, cover letter)
• From scattered data: company printouts, ID card, passport, chat history

Technical stack

Component	Tool	Why
Document → Markdown	MarkItDown (Microsoft, 96K stars)	Structured text from any format
DOCX SDT filling	zipfile + lxml (first principles)	Bypasses python-docx limitations
DOCX table filling	python-docx table cell access	Government form tables
PDF AcroForm filling	PyMuPDF widget API	Direct field value setting
PDF flat filling	PyMuPDF insert_text	Clean text at detected positions
Data extraction	Claude API (text)	Structured extraction from markdown
Field matching	Claude API (text)	Semantic matching to wiki data
CLI	Click + Rich	Clean command interface

Commands

Command	Description
pencilpusher init	Create vault with sources/inbox/outbox/wiki folders
pencilpusher ingest <file>	Ingest a single document (API)
pencilpusher ingest-all	Ingest all new files from sources/ (API)
pencilpusher fill <form>	Fill a single form (API)
pencilpusher fill-all	Fill all forms in inbox/ → outbox/ (API)
pencilpusher show [page]	Display vault index or specific wiki page
pencilpusher lint	Health-check the wiki
pencilpusher files	List stored source documents
pencilpusher read <file>	Convert any document to Markdown (no API)
pencilpusher detect <form>	Detect form fields as JSON (no API for AcroForm/DOCX)
pencilpusher write-wiki <page> <content>	Write directly to a vault wiki page (no API)
pencilpusher fill <form> --field-map '{...}'	Fill with explicit mapping (no API)
pencilpusher fill <form> --field-map '{...}' --fields-json '[...]'	Fill flat PDF with agent-provided field positions (no API)

Agent-driven mode (no API key needed)

pencilpusher can be used by AI coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, etc.) without an Anthropic API key. The agent does the LLM reasoning; pencilpusher does the document manipulation.

# 1. Read a document — agent gets Markdown back
pencilpusher read passport.pdf

# 2. Agent reasons about the data, then writes to vault
pencilpusher write-wiki identity "# Identity\nName: Jane Moyo\nDOB: 1990-03-15"

# 3. Detect form fields — agent gets JSON back
pencilpusher detect application.pdf

# 4. Agent matches fields to vault data, then fills
pencilpusher fill application.pdf --field-map '{"Full Name": "Jane Moyo", "Date of Birth": "15 March 1990"}'

# For flat PDFs (no AcroForm), the agent also provides field positions:
pencilpusher fill flat.pdf \
  --field-map '{"Full Name": "Jane Moyo"}' \
  --fields-json '[{"name": "Full Name", "bbox": [15, 20, 50, 3], "page": 0}]'

The read, detect, write-wiki, and fill --field-map commands make zero API calls. For flat PDFs, pass --fields-json with field positions from the agent's own vision analysis. The existing ingest and fill commands still work standalone with an API key.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• Anthropic API key (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY) — only needed for ingest, fill (without --field-map), and lint

Limitations & known issues

pencilpusher is alpha (v0.1.0). It works well on the document classes it has been tested against; it will not handle every form in the wild yet.

What works well today:

• AcroForm PDFs with named fields
• Flat PDFs where field labels are present as selectable text
• DOCX with SDT content controls, table cells, or simple {{placeholder}} markers
• Latin-script (English) form labels and values

What's flaky or unsupported:

• Scanned / image-only PDFs — no OCR in the default install. The optional [ocr] extra installs pytesseract but the pipeline doesn't yet feed OCR output into field detection. Expect to do this manually for now.
• Non-Latin scripts in field labels — Claude can match them, but PyMuPDF text insertion uses the document's default font, which may not contain the needed glyphs. Workaround: AcroForm PDFs only.
• Checkboxes and radio groups in flat PDFs — only AcroForm checkboxes are reliably filled. Flat-PDF checkbox detection is not yet implemented.
• Multi-page forms with repeating sections (e.g. "list each director on a separate row") — the field matcher treats each row independently and may duplicate values.
• Forms with overlapping or rotated text — flat-PDF position detection assumes labels are upright and non-overlapping.
• Encrypted / password-protected PDFs — must be unlocked before passing to pencilpusher.
• Excel (XLSX) and OpenDocument (ODT) — not supported. PRs welcome.
• Windows path edge cases — generally works, but report anything you hit.

If you have a form that fails, please open an issue with an anonymised sample. Real-world failures are the main thing driving v0.2.

Development

git clone https://github.com/Loodt/pencilpusher.git
cd pencilpusher
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.