asta-documents

name	asta-documents
description	Local document metadata index for scientific documents

Asta Documents Management

Use this skill when the user asks to store a document "in Asta" or retrieve "from Asta". Use it when the user references an "Asta document" or anything with an asta:// URI.

This skill provides complete document management functionality for tracking research papers, documentation, and resources using the asta-documents CLI.

What it does: Track document metadata (URLs, summaries, tags) in a local index. Think of it as a smart bookmark manager with powerful search capabilities.

Installation

1. Install the CLI Tool

# Install globally using uv
uv tool install git+https://github.com/allenai/asta-resource-repo.git

Prerequisites: Python 3.10+ and uv package manager

Verify installation with asta-documents --help

Quick Command Reference

Add --json flag to any command for machine-readable output.

# List documents
asta-documents list
asta-documents list --tags="ai,research"

# Search document summaries
asta-documents search "query"

# Search by specific field
asta-documents search "title words" --name
asta-documents search "ai,nlp" --tags
asta-documents search ".year > 2020" --extra

# Add document
asta-documents add <url> --name="Title" --summary="Description" --tags="tag1,tag2" --extra='{"author": "Smith et al", "year": 2024, "venue": "NeurIPS"}'

# Get document metadata
asta-documents get <uuid>

# Update document
asta-documents update <uuid> --name="New Title" --tags="new,tags"

# Fetch document content
asta-documents fetch <uuid> -o /tmp/document.pdf

# Manage tags
asta-documents add-tags <uuid> --tags="new,tags"
asta-documents remove-tags <uuid> --tags="old,tags"

# Cache management
asta-documents cache list
asta-documents cache stats
asta-documents cache clean --days 7

# Summary information (document counts)
asta-documents show

Always use the command line interface for all operations to ensure proper index management and caching. Avoid direct read/write operations on the index file.

Fetch Document Content

The index stores metadata only. The content of a document is retrievable via its URL. The fetch command retrieves the content and caches it locally for future use.

Fetch to file (with automatic caching):

asta-documents fetch <uuid> -o /tmp/document.pdf

Cache Management

List cached items:

asta-documents cache list

Show cache statistics:

asta-documents cache stats

Clean old cache entries:

# Remove items older than N days
asta-documents cache clean --days 14

Clear entire cache:

asta-documents cache clear
asta-documents cache clear -y  # Skip confirmation

Show specific item details:

asta-documents cache info <hash>

Common Workflows

Workflow 1: Add and Organize Papers

# Add research paper
asta-documents add https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762.pdf \
  --name="Attention Is All You Need" \
  --summary="Seminal paper introducing Transformer architecture" \
  --tags="ai,research,nlp,transformers" \
  --mime-type="application/pdf" \
  --extra='{"author": "Vaswani et al", "year": 2017, "venue": "NeurIPS"}'

# Search papers by tag
asta-documents search "transformers" --tags

Workflow 2: Search and Fetch

# Search for relevant documents
asta-documents search "transformer architecture" --show-scores

# Get metadata for top result (using UUID from search results)
asta-documents get 6MNxGbWGRC

# Fetch content
asta-documents fetch 6MNxGbWGRC -o /tmp/paper.pdf -q

# Read with PDF support
# Read(/tmp/paper.pdf)

Workflow 3: Search with JSON Processing

# Search and extract UUIDs
RESULTS=$(asta-documents search "query" --json)

# Get first UUID (example with Python)
UUID=$(echo "$RESULTS" | python3 -c "import sys,json; results=json.load(sys.stdin); print(results[0]['result']['uuid'] if results else '')")

# Fetch that document
asta-documents fetch "$UUID" -o result.pdf

Workflow 4: Bulk Tag Management

# List documents with old tag
DOCS=$(asta-documents list --tags="old-tag" --json)

# For each, remove old tag and add new
for uuid in $(echo "$DOCS" | python3 -c "import sys,json; print('\\n'.join([d['uuid'] for d in json.load(sys.stdin)]))"); do
    asta-documents remove-tags "$uuid" --tags="old-tag"
    asta-documents add-tags "$uuid" --tags="new-tag"
done

Workflow 5: Update Multiple Fields

# Get current metadata (using UUID)
asta-documents get 6MNxGbWGRC

# Update multiple fields
asta-documents update 6MNxGbWGRC \
  --name="Updated Title" \
  --summary="Updated summary with more details" \
  --tags="updated,revised,2025"

Workflow 6: Cache Maintenance

# Check cache usage
asta-documents cache stats

# List what's cached
asta-documents cache list

# Remove old entries if cache is large
asta-documents cache clean --days 7

# Verify cache reduction
asta-documents cache stats

Field-Specific Search

Asta uses different search strategies optimized for each document field:

--name (Name search):

• Simple case-insensitive word matching
• Splits query into words, matches any word in name
• Score = (matched words / total query words)
• Fast, no indexing needed
• Example: asta-documents search "Attention" --name

--tags (Tag search):

• Comma-separated tag matching
• Case-insensitive
• Score = (matched tags / total query tags)
• Finds documents with any matching tags
• Example: asta-documents search "ai,nlp" --tags

--summary (Summary search, default):

• Uses best available method automatically:
  • Hybrid (BM25 + semantic embeddings) → best quality
  • BM25 (keyword relevance ranking) → fast indexed
  • FTS5 (full-text search) → fallback
  • Simple (substring matching) → always available
• Optimized for natural language queries
• Understands semantic meaning
• Example: asta-documents search "papers about transformers"

--extra (Extra metadata search):

• JSONPath-like query syntax
• Supported operators: >, >=, <, <=, ==, contains
• Numeric and string comparisons
• Examples:
  • asta-documents search ".year > 2020" --extra
  • asta-documents search ".author contains Smith" --extra
  • asta-documents search ".venue == NeurIPS" --extra

Output Formats

Human-readable (default):

• Formatted tables and lists
• Color-coded (if terminal supports)
• Progress messages

JSON (--json flag):

• Machine-readable
• All fields included
• For scripting and integration

Verbose (-v flag for list):

• Shows all metadata fields
• Includes extra metadata
• Full URIs and timestamps

Best Practices

1. Use descriptive summaries: They're indexed for search
2. Tag consistently: Establish a tagging scheme
3. Use extra metadata: Store author, year, venue for papers
4. Let fetch handle caching: Don't manually check cache
5. Use JSON for scripting: More reliable than parsing text
6. Use quiet mode in scripts: -q suppresses progress messages

Troubleshooting

"asta-documents: command not found"

• Verify installation: uv tool list | grep asta
• Add to PATH: export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
• Reinstall: uv tool install --reinstall git+https://github.com/allenai/asta-resource-repo.git

"Document not found"

• Verify URI: asta-documents list --json | grep <partial-uri>
• Check namespace: URIs are namespace-specific
• Ensure there is an index file at .asta/documents/index.yaml

"Fetch failed"

• Check URL is accessible: curl -I <url>
• Try force refresh: --force
• Check network connection

"Search returns no results"

• Try simpler query terms
• Search by name or tags for exact matching:
  • asta-documents search "keyword" --name
  • asta-documents search "tag" --tags
• Check if documents exist: asta-documents list

"Cache is large"

• Check size: asta-documents cache stats
• Clean old entries: asta-documents cache clean --days 7
• Clear if needed: asta-documents cache clear -y

Updating

Update the CLI tool:

uv tool install --reinstall git+https://github.com/allenai/asta-resource-repo.git

Update the skill:

curl -o ~/.claude/skills/asta-documents.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/allenai/asta-resource-repo/main/skills/asta-documents.md

Links

• Repository: https://github.com/allenai/asta-resource-repo
• Documentation: https://github.com/allenai/asta-resource-repo/blob/main/README.md
• Issues: https://github.com/allenai/asta-resource-repo/issues