| name | docx-tools |
| description | Use the global docx-tools CLI for Microsoft Word .docx writing workflows, including building documents from JSON specs, reading .docx files back to specs, patching specs, handling comments, adding authors/figures, and parsing BibTeX. |
| argument-hint | ["task-or-file"] |
| allowed-tools | Bash(docx-tools *), Bash(which docx-tools), Bash(command -v docx-tools), Bash(python3 -m pip show docx-tools), Read, Write, Edit |
docx-tools
You are using the global docx-tools CLI for programmatic Microsoft Word document workflows.
When to Use
Use this skill when the user asks to create, inspect, convert, patch, or annotate .docx files with the local docx-tools package, or when a workflow mentions spec.json, Word comments, author blocks, figures, equations, references, or BibTeX parsing for Word documents.
Global CLI
- Prefer the global CLI:
docx-tools --help
- If the command is missing, check the expected editable checkout:
command -v docx-tools
python3 -m pip show docx-tools
- The normal global executable is
/opt/homebrew/bin/docx-tools, installed in editable mode from:
/Users/idohaber/00_development/docx-tools
- If the executable exists but behavior seems stale, inspect the checkout before reinstalling. Homebrew Python may be externally managed, so do not force
pip install --break-system-packages unless the user explicitly approves that risk.
Core Commands
Use these commands as the stable interface:
docx-tools init <project-dir> --title "Paper Title"
docx-tools build <project-dir>/spec.json -o <project-dir>/output/paper.docx
docx-tools read input.docx -o spec.json
docx-tools patch spec.json ops.json -o spec.json --build output/paper.docx
docx-tools inject input.docx --comments comments.json -o reviewed.docx
docx-tools extract reviewed.docx --json
docx-tools authors input.docx --data authors.json -o output.docx
docx-tools figure input.docx --image figure.png --caption "Caption." -o output.docx
docx-tools bib refs.bib
Working Rules
- Treat
spec.json as the source of truth for generated papers unless the user says the .docx has newer human edits.
- When ingesting human Word edits, run
docx-tools read <docx> -o <spec.json> and preserve any existing project layout.
- When changing a generated paper, prefer editing the JSON spec or applying
docx-tools patch operations, then rebuild the .docx.
- When comments are involved, keep comments as
.docx annotations and use extract or inject; do not fold reviewer comments into the body text unless requested.
- Before overwriting a user-provided
.docx, write to a new output path unless the user explicitly asked to overwrite.
- Check generated outputs exist after CLI commands and report the exact output path.
Exit Conditions
Finish by telling the user which docx-tools command ran, what file was produced or changed, and whether verification passed. If the global CLI is unavailable, report the PATH lookup result and the fallback attempted.
