docling

name	docling
description	Use when the user wants to parse, convert, chunk, or structurally analyze PDFs, DOCX, PPTX, HTML, images, audio transcripts, or similar documents with Docling. Prefer this skill for local document parsing before ad hoc text extraction.
metadata	{"short-description":"Local document intelligence via Docling"}

Docling

Windows Runtime Commands

On native Windows, use the managed Windows runner and the native runtime command target. Set $runtime to the installed runtime root. Multi-agent installs usually use %LOCALAPPDATA%\ai-agents-skills\runtime. Then run:

$runtime = if ($env:AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT) { $env:AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT } else { "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\ai-agents-skills\runtime" }
& "$runtime\run_skill.ps1" "skills/docling/run_docling.ps1" <args>
& "$runtime\run_skill.ps1" "skills/docling/run_docling.ps1" <args>

POSIX examples below use run_skill.sh and .sh command targets; use the Windows command target above on native Windows.

Use this skill for high-quality local document parsing and structured export.

When to use

Use this skill when the user wants to:

• parse a PDF, DOCX, PPTX, HTML page, image, or similar document
• convert a document to Markdown, JSON, HTML, or plain text
• extract tables, headings, figures, formulas, or reading order
• chunk a document for RAG or downstream indexing
• inspect document structure before review or synthesis
• handle OCR-heavy or layout-heavy documents more robustly than plain text extraction

For paper retrieval, keep the existing routing order:

• zotero first
• calibre second for review tasks needing the document
• online fallback only after those library checks

Docling is the parsing layer after you have the document.

Base paths

Skill docs:

• installed target skill directory

Runtime files:

• $AAS_RUNTIME_WORKSPACE/skills/docling/

Installed Docling environment:

• ~/.local/share/docling-venv/
• CLI: ~/.local/share/docling-venv/bin/docling
• Python packages: ~/.local/share/docling-venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/

Shared runtime runner:

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh <subcommand> [args...]

The runtime launcher currently delegates Docling execution to the dedicated virtualenv above rather than a package copy under $AAS_RUNTIME_WORKSPACE/.local/.

Supported runtime subcommands

Doctor

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh doctor

Checks whether Python imports and the docling CLI are available. In this setup, that check should resolve against ~/.local/share/docling-venv.

Convert

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh convert   --source "/path/to/file.pdf"   --to md

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh convert   --source "/path/to/file.pdf"   --to json   --preset scan-heavy

Useful local quality controls:

• --preset local-accurate: default high-quality local parsing
• --preset scan-heavy: stronger OCR for scanned/image-heavy PDFs
• --ocr-mode never|auto|always
• --ocr-engine auto|easyocr|ocrmac|rapidocr|tesseract|tesserocr
• --ocr-lang <lang> repeated for multiple languages
• --force-full-page-ocr
• --table-mode fast|accurate
• --page-range 1-8
• --max-num-pages <n>
• --output <path> --overwrite

Optional remote fallback is explicit and never enabled by config:

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh convert \
  --source "/path/to/file.pdf" \
  --to md \
  --preset scan-heavy \
  --ocr-fallback ocrspace \
  --allow-remote-ocr \
  --ocr-audit-output "/path/to/file.ocr-audit.json"

This runs local Docling first, evaluates extracted-text quality, and uploads selected local PDF pages to OCR.space only if local conversion fails or the quality gate degrades. It requires an OCR.space API key in OCRSPACE_API_KEY or OCR_SPACE_API_KEY.

Live OCR.space smoke is also explicit and uses a generated synthetic PDF page, not a user document:

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh ocrspace-smoke \
  --allow-remote-ocr

This command is not part of default post-install smoke because it requires a real API key and a live remote request.

Analyze structure

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh extract   --source "/path/to/file.pdf"

Emits JSON with counts and basic structural signals such as headings, tables, pictures, and pages. The same --config, --preset, OCR, table, page, and limit options are accepted.

Every heading is emitted by default. --headings-limit and --max-heading-chars narrow the output; whenever they do, the payload reports complete: false next to headings_total, so a partial list is never mistaken for the whole structure.

OCR quality

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh quality \
  --source "/path/to/file.pdf" \
  --preset scan-heavy

Reports a local quality score, characters/words per page, alphanumeric ratio, replacement-character ratio, and reasons that would trigger fallback.

Chunk

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh chunk   --source "/path/to/file.pdf"   --mode hierarchical

The same --config, --preset, OCR, table, page, and limit options are accepted.

Chunk output is complete by default: every chunk, with its full text. A real paper runs to hundreds of chunks, so the payload usually belongs in a file rather than on stdout:

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh chunk \
  --source "/path/to/file.pdf" \
  --output "/path/to/chunks.json"

Printing more than --max-stdout-chars (200,000 by default) is an error, not a silent cut. The message names the three ways out: --output for the whole document, --offset/--limit for a deliberate window, or a raised ceiling.

To page through a long document, follow next_offset until it is null:

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh chunk \
  --source "/path/to/file.pdf" --offset 0 --limit 50

Read these fields before using the result:

Field	Meaning
complete	true only when every character of every chunk is present
chunks_total / chunks_emitted	how much of the document this payload covers
characters_total / characters_emitted	the same in characters
next_offset	--offset for the next page, or null at the end
truncated_chunks	chunks cut by --max-chunk-chars (0 unless you asked)

Each chunk carries index, characters, truncated, and the Docling meta with page and bounding-box provenance, so a quoted passage keeps its locator.

--max-chunk-chars cuts individual chunks and is off by default. Use it only when a downstream consumer needs a hard per-chunk bound; the cut is recorded per chunk and in truncated_chunks.

Recommended settings

Local-only policy

The managed runtime is local-only by default:

• document sources must be local paths, not URLs or network shares
• HTML/Markdown inputs with remote assets are rejected before conversion
• remote service fields such as endpoints, provider URLs, tokens, and OCR.space settings are rejected in config
• Docling pipeline options force enable_remote_services=False
• vlm-local requires a local DOCLING_ARTIFACTS_PATH or artifacts_path

OCR.space is available only as an explicit fallback path. It must be requested with both --ocr-fallback ocrspace and --allow-remote-ocr; Docling config files still cannot contain API keys, endpoints, OCR.space fields, or provider URLs. The adapter uses OCR Engine 3 for paper extraction quality. Page-by-page splitting can satisfy per-request size/timeout constraints, but it does not remove account-level rate, quota, or concurrency limits.

Config file

Pass a config explicitly:

bash "${AAS_RUNTIME_ROOT:-$HOME/.local/share/ai-agents-skills/runtime}/run_skill.sh" skills/docling/run_docling.sh convert \
  --source "/path/to/file.pdf" \
  --config "/path/to/docling.toml" \
  --preset scan-heavy

Discovery order is:

1. --config
2. AAS_DOCLING_CONFIG
3. DOCLING_CONFIG
4. $AAS_RUNTIME_WORKSPACE/config/docling.toml
5. $OPENCLAW_WORKSPACE/config/docling.toml only with --allow-openclaw-config

Use docling.example.toml in the runtime skill directory as the starting template.

Environment variables

Docling supports these environment variables directly or indirectly:

• DOCLING_ARTIFACTS_PATH
• DOCLING_PERF_PAGE_BATCH_SIZE
• DOCLING_PERF_DOC_BATCH_SIZE
• DOCLING_PERF_DOC_BATCH_CONCURRENCY
• DOCLING_INFERENCE_COMPILE_TORCH_MODELS
• DOCLING_DEVICE
• DOCLING_NUM_THREADS
• OMP_NUM_THREADS
• AAS_DOCLING_CONFIG
• AAS_DOCLING_PRESET
• OCRSPACE_API_KEY or OCR_SPACE_API_KEY for explicit OCR.space fallback

Use DOCLING_ARTIFACTS_PATH when models are prefetched or when you want offline behavior.

Pipeline choices

• standard pipeline: default for born-digital PDFs and CPU-friendly conversions
• vlm pipeline: for harder layouts, handwriting, formulas, or image-heavy pages; requires local artifacts

Important options

• OCR: do_ocr
• OCR mode: never, auto, or always
• local OCR engine: auto, easyocr, rapidocr, tesseract, tesserocr, or ocrmac
• tables: do_table_structure
• table matching: table_structure_options.do_cell_matching
• table mode: FAST vs ACCURATE
• document timeout: document_timeout
• page slicing: page_range
• file/page limits: max_num_pages, max_file_size
• remote inference gating: enable_remote_services
• enrichments:
  • do_code_enrichment
  • do_formula_enrichment
  • do_picture_classification
  • do_picture_description

Safety notes

• Prefer local models and local parsing by default.
• Do not place API keys, endpoints, OCR.space fields, or provider URLs in Docling config.
• Use OCR.space only through explicit fallback flags when the user accepts remote page upload.
• For review workflows, use Docling for parsing but keep review judgment in paper-review or annotated-review.

Integration guidance

• source-research: use this skill for local PDF/document parsing before ad hoc extraction.
• paper-review: prefer this skill when a retrieved PDF/book file is available.
• annotated-review: use this skill for structural extraction before annotation/review when helpful.

Supporting references

Open these only when relevant:

• references/pipelines.md
• references/settings.md
• references/chunking.md
• references/remote-services.md