surf

List headings, or extract one section by name, from Markdown, TeX, or PDF.

Distribution surf-cli. Command surf. Python 3.12+; pypdf is the one runtime dependency, for PDF outlines. Only the section you name is printed, so the rest of the file never enters an agent's context.

Install

uv tool install surf-cli      # or: pipx install surf-cli, or: pip install surf-cli
surf --version

With Nix:

nix profile install github:saintx/surf-cli          # add ?ref=X.Y.Z to pin a release

Quick start

The examples run against the reference files shipped with the agent skill:

cd plugins/surf/skills/surf/references

A file with no heading named returns the map: frontmatter, then the heading tree, none of the body.

$ surf about.md
---
metadata:
  author:
    name: Alexander R. Saint Croix
    github_username: saintx
    email: alex@saintx.us
    twitter: alexsaintx
  surf-version: "0.7.1"
---

- Surf — About
  - Overview
  - When to use

A heading returns that section and stops at the next heading of the same or higher level.

$ surf about.md "When to use"
## When to use

Invoke when skimming markdown, TeX, or PDF files, checking what a file contains, ...

The same two commands work on TeX, addressed by sectioning commands and the abstract environment, and on PDF, addressed by outline bookmarks. surf.tex and surf.pdf are one paper in two forms and list the same tree from either.

$ surf surf.tex --list
- abstract
- Background
- A Thin Index Shaped by Intent
- Agentic Context Composition
- Skills You Can Check
- Indexes over Indexes
- Markdown, TeX, and PDF
- This Paper

$ surf surf.tex "Markdown, TeX, and PDF"
\section{Markdown, TeX, and PDF}

surf addresses a markdown file by its ATX headings, a TeX file by its sectioning
commands and its \texttt{abstract} environment, and a PDF by its outline. ...

$ surf surf.pdf "Markdown, TeX, and PDF"

Addressing

Suppose guide.md is:

---
title: Guide
tags: [cli, docs]
---
# Guide

Intro paragraph.

## Install

### Usage

Install usage text.

## API

### Usage

API usage text.

#### Examples

Deep example.

Its map is:

$ surf guide.md
---
title: Guide
tags: [cli, docs]
---

- Guide
  - Install
    - Usage
  - API
    - Usage
      - Examples

Get one section. Name the heading. The section runs to the next heading of the same or higher level, so a parent brings its children.

$ surf guide.md "API"
## API

### Usage

API usage text.

#### Examples

Deep example.

Pick between two headings with the same name. Write the path from the parent. A bare name matches the first occurrence in the file.

$ surf guide.md "API#Usage"
### Usage

API usage text.

#### Examples

Deep example.

List only the top N levels. --level N on a listing shows ranks 1 through N.

$ surf guide.md --list --level 2
- Guide
  - Install
  - API

Extract only at an exact level. --level N on an extract matches rank N and nothing else. Usage exists only at rank 3, so rank 2 is not found.

$ surf guide.md "Examples" --level 4
#### Examples

Deep example.

$ surf guide.md "Usage" --level 2
Error: heading "Usage" not found in guide.md.

Use a link as the address. Obsidian wikilinks and markdown links resolve directly, # segments included.

surf "[[guide#API#Usage]]"
surf "[API](guide.md#API)"

Frontmatter only, or headings only. -f prints the YAML block and nothing else. --list prints the tree and no YAML. --full prints the YAML and then the named section.

surf -f guide.md
surf --list guide.md
surf guide.md "Install" --full

Drop the heading line, or write to a file.

surf guide.md "API" --no-heading
surf guide.md "API" -o api.md

What counts as a heading. On markdown, the ATX heading text. On TeX, the brace title of a sectioning command, plus abstract for the abstract environment; \input and \include of .tex files expand relative to the file you name, while graphics, comments, shell pipes, absolute paths, .. segments, and macro-built paths do not. On PDF, an outline bookmark title; the extract is the page text from that bookmark to the next, and when the next bookmark shares a page, that page is included. Rank 1 is # on markdown, the shallowest sectioning command in the TeX file (\section in an article), and the outline's top rank on PDF.

Matching ignores case. surf guide resolves to guide.md; .tex and .pdf need their suffix. Any other UTF-8 file is addressed as ATX markdown.

When there is nothing to address. A file with no headings, or a PDF with no outline, prints no structural index and line and byte counts (page and byte counts on PDF), and exits 0. A heading that is not there exits 1 with Error: heading "X" not found in guide.md. A missing file or bad usage exits 2.

Scan a directory. Frontmatter across many files, no body loaded:

ls docs/*.md | xargs -I {} surf -f {}

surf --help lists every flag.

Agent skill

plugins/surf packages a skill that teaches an agent how to use surf. It carries a Claude Code manifest, an Agent Plugins 1.0.0 manifest, and the skill itself at plugins/surf/skills/surf, in the Agent Skills format that Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, and Grok Build read. The skill shells out to surf, so install the CLI first.

Claude Code installs it from the marketplace in this repo:

claude plugin marketplace add saintx/surf-cli
claude plugin install surf@surf-cli

Any harness that reads a skills directory takes a copy:

cp -R plugins/surf/skills/surf ~/.agents/skills/surf

This checkout links .agents/skills/surf, .claude/skills/surf, and .grok/skills/surf into the plugin, so an agent working in the repo already has it.

The paper in plugins/surf/skills/surf/references/surf.pdf (also surf.tex) is about what surf can be used to build. surf itself is the primitive.

Contributing

Development setup, tests, and lint are in CONTRIBUTING.md. The release procedure is in RELEASING.md.

License

MIT.