pdfask
Chat with a PDF on the command line, powered by Claude.
Uses Claude's native PDF support — no text extraction, no OCR. The model reads the document directly, including tables, layout, and embedded images. Prompt caching makes follow-up questions ~10x cheaper than the first.
Install
pip install pdfask
Or with uv:
uv tool install pdfask
Setup
Get an API key from https://console.anthropic.com/settings/keys, then either export it:
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
…or drop it in a .env file in whatever directory you're running pdfask from:
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
Usage
One-shot question:
pdfask report.pdf "What's the executive summary?"
Interactive REPL (Ctrl-D to exit):
pdfask report.pdf
Configuration
| Env var | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY |
(required) | From console.anthropic.com |
ANTHROPIC_MODEL |
claude-opus-4-7 |
Override to use a smaller model |
Development
git clone https://github.com/dsl16/pdf-chat
cd pdf-chat
uv tool install --editable .
License
MIT
1 maintainer
Metadata
1 maintainer
Release files for pdfask 0.1.0
For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.
Source distribution (sdist)
| File | Size | Uploaded | |
|---|---|---|---|
| pdfask-0.1.0.tar.gz | 4.1 kB | Details |
Built distribution (wheel)
| File | Interpreter | ABI | Platform | Reset |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pdfask-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl | Python 3 | none | any | Details |
Total release size: 8.8 kB
Release files / pdfask-0.1.0.tar.gz
| Download URL | pdfask-0.1.0.tar.gz |
|---|---|
| Size | 4.1 kB |
| Tags | Source |
|
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums |
5be9c54a19035386e8b56c07b6864279bca2178d2397fa33f69d8215ba7d8510
|
|
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums |
c7eeaa45ab5599c738cbc8748affef29e9baa3d17676453f1989f62cd20a4c9b
|
| Upload date | |
|
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing? |
No |
| Uploaded via |
uv/0.11.10 {"installer":{"name":"uv","version":"0.11.10","subcommand":["publish"]},"python":null,"implementation":{"name":null,"version":null},"distro":{"name":"macOS","version":null,"id":null,"libc":null},"system":{"name":null,"release":null},"cpu":null,"openssl_version":null,"setuptools_version":null,"rustc_version":null,"ci":null}
|
Release files / pdfask-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl
| Download URL | pdfask-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl |
|---|---|
| Size | 4.8 kB |
| Tags | Python 3 |
|
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums |
5ade083d07bc5da3748f83bfe861fbbe3c04562c0f6b5cd4e2a5b974913945e7
|
|
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums |
660df0e12a6b0c2b075bae2ad0dc9b13b3d7ebee87f9dad372558d9acda42a40
|
| Upload date | |
|
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing? |
No |
| Uploaded via |
uv/0.11.10 {"installer":{"name":"uv","version":"0.11.10","subcommand":["publish"]},"python":null,"implementation":{"name":null,"version":null},"distro":{"name":"macOS","version":null,"id":null,"libc":null},"system":{"name":null,"release":null},"cpu":null,"openssl_version":null,"setuptools_version":null,"rustc_version":null,"ci":null}
|
