Readwise CLI

Use the

readwise

command to access the user's Readwise highlights and Reader documents. Readwise has two products:

Readwise — highlights from books, articles, podcasts, and more. Includes daily review and spaced repetition.
Reader — a read-later app for saving and reading articles, PDFs, EPUBs, RSS feeds, emails, tweets, and videos.

Setup

readwise

is not installed:

bash

npm install -g @readwise/cli

If not authenticated, ask the user for their Readwise access token (they can get one at https://readwise.io/access_token), then run:

bash

readwise login-with-token <token>

Discovering Commands

Every command supports

--help

for full option details:

bash

readwise --help
readwise reader-search-documents --help
readwise readwise-list-highlights --help

Add

--json

to any command for machine-readable output. Use

--refresh

to force-refresh cached data.

Reader Commands

Searching documents

bash

# Semantic search across all saved documents
readwise reader-search-documents --query "spaced repetition"

# Search only articles saved for later
readwise reader-search-documents --query "machine learning" --category-in article --location-in later,shortlist

# Search by author within the inbox
readwise reader-search-documents --query "AI" --author-search "Simon Willison" --location-in new

# Search documents published after a date
readwise reader-search-documents --query "transformers" --published-date-gt 2024-01-01

Browsing documents

bash

# List 10 most recent inbox items (minimal fields to save tokens)
readwise reader-list-documents --location new --limit 10 --response-fields title,author,summary,word_count,category,saved_at

# List archived articles tagged "research"
readwise reader-list-documents --location archive --tag research --category article

# List unseen documents in the inbox
readwise reader-list-documents --location new --seen false

# List RSS feed items
readwise reader-list-documents --location feed --limit 20 --response-fields title,author,summary,site_name

# Get a specific document by ID
readwise reader-list-documents --id <document_id>

Locations:

new

(inbox),

later

shortlist

archive

feed

. When the user says "inbox", use

new

Reading and highlighting

bash

# Get full document content as Markdown
readwise reader-get-document-details --document-id <id>

# Get all highlights on a document
readwise reader-get-document-highlights --document-id <id>

# Highlight a passage (html-content must match the document's HTML exactly)
# Get the HTML first via reader-list-documents with --response-fields html_content
readwise reader-create-highlight --document-id <id> --html-content "<p>The exact passage to highlight</p>"

# Highlight with a note and tags
readwise reader-create-highlight --document-id <id> --html-content "<p>Key insight</p>" --note "Connects to spaced repetition research" --tags review,concept

Saving documents

bash

# Save a URL — Reader scrapes it automatically
readwise reader-create-document --url "https://example.com/article"

# Save with metadata
readwise reader-create-document --url "https://example.com" --title "Great Article" --tags research,ai --notes "Recommended by Alice"

# Save raw Markdown content (provide a unique URL as identifier)
readwise reader-create-document --title "Meeting Notes" --markdown "# Notes from today..." --url "https://me.com#notes-march-2025"

Organizing

bash

# Move documents between locations (max 50 per call)
readwise reader-move-documents --document-ids <id1>,<id2> --location archive
readwise reader-move-documents --document-ids <id> --location later

# Bulk mark documents as seen
readwise reader-bulk-edit-document-metadata --documents '[{"document_id": "<id>", "seen": true}]'

# Bulk update metadata (title, author, tags, summary, etc.)
readwise reader-bulk-edit-document-metadata --documents '[{"document_id": "<id>", "title": "Better Title", "tags": ["ai", "research"]}]'

# Tags
readwise reader-list-tags
readwise reader-add-tags-to-document --document-id <id> --tag-names important,research
readwise reader-remove-tags-from-document --document-id <id> --tag-names old-tag

# Highlight tags and notes
readwise reader-add-tags-to-highlight --document-id <id> --highlight-document-id <hid> --tag-names concept
readwise reader-remove-tags-from-highlight --document-id <id> --highlight-document-id <hid> --tag-names old-tag
readwise reader-set-highlight-notes --document-id <id> --highlight-document-id <hid> --notes "Updated note"

Exporting

bash

# Export all documents as a ZIP of Markdown files (async)
readwise reader-export-documents
readwise reader-get-export-documents-status --export-id <id>

# Delta export — only docs updated since last export
readwise reader-export-documents --since-updated "2024-01-01T00:00:00Z"

Readwise Commands

Searching highlights

bash

# Semantic search across all highlights
readwise readwise-search-highlights --vector-search-term "learning techniques"

# Search with full-text filter on a specific field
readwise readwise-search-highlights --vector-search-term "memory" --full-text-queries '[{"field_name": "document_title", "search_term": "psychology"}]'

Full-text query fields:

document_author

document_title

highlight_note

highlight_plaintext

highlight_tags

Browsing highlights

bash

# List 20 most recent highlights
readwise readwise-list-highlights --page-size 20

# Highlights from a specific book
readwise readwise-list-highlights --book-id <id>

# Highlights from the last month
readwise readwise-list-highlights --highlighted-at-gt "2025-02-01T00:00:00Z"

Creating and editing highlights

bash

# Create a highlight (matched to a book by title/author, or goes into "Quotes")
readwise readwise-create-highlights --highlights '[{"text": "The key insight here", "title": "Book Title", "author": "Author Name"}]'

# Create multiple highlights at once
readwise readwise-create-highlights --highlights '[{"text": "First quote", "title": "Book A"}, {"text": "Second quote", "title": "Book B"}]'

# Update a highlight — text, note, color, tags
readwise readwise-update-highlight --highlight-id <id> --note "New note" --add-tags concept,review --color blue

# Delete a highlight
readwise readwise-delete-highlight --highlight-id <id>

Colors:

yellow

blue

pink

orange

green

purple

Daily review

bash

# Get today's spaced repetition review
readwise readwise-get-daily-review

Returns highlights selected by the spaced repetition algorithm plus a URL for interactive review.

Example Workflows

Triage the inbox: List recent saves, read each one, decide what's worth the user's time.

bash

readwise reader-list-documents --location new --limit 10 --response-fields title,author,summary,word_count,category,saved_at
readwise reader-get-document-details --document-id <id>
readwise reader-move-documents --document-ids <id> --location later    # worth reading
readwise reader-move-documents --document-ids <id> --location archive  # skip

Search across everything: Find all content on a topic across both highlights and documents.

bash

readwise reader-search-documents --query "spaced repetition"
readwise readwise-search-highlights --vector-search-term "spaced repetition"

Quiz on a recent read: Find a finished document, get its content and highlights, quiz the user.

bash

readwise reader-list-documents --location archive --limit 10 --response-fields title,author,summary,word_count
readwise reader-get-document-details --document-id <id>
readwise reader-get-document-highlights --document-id <id>

Catch up on RSS: Browse feed items, surface the best ones, mark the rest as seen.

bash

readwise reader-list-documents --location feed --limit 20 --response-fields title,author,summary,word_count,site_name
readwise reader-bulk-edit-document-metadata --documents '[{"document_id": "<id>", "seen": true}]'
readwise reader-move-documents --document-ids <id> --location later

Save and annotate: Save a URL, highlight key passages, tag and organize.

bash

readwise reader-create-document --url "https://example.com/article" --tags research
readwise reader-create-highlight --document-id <id> --html-content "<p>Key passage here</p>" --note "This connects to..."
readwise reader-add-tags-to-document --document-id <id> --tag-names important

Build a reading recap: See what you've finished and highlighted recently.

bash

readwise reader-list-documents --location archive --updated-after "2025-03-10T00:00:00Z" --response-fields title,author,word_count,reading_progress
readwise reader-get-document-highlights --document-id <id>
readwise readwise-list-highlights --highlighted-at-gt "2025-03-10T00:00:00Z" --page-size 50

readwise-cli

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Readwise CLI

Setup

Discovering Commands

Reader Commands

Searching documents

Browsing documents

Reading and highlighting

Saving documents

Organizing

Exporting

Readwise Commands

Searching highlights

Browsing highlights

Creating and editing highlights

Daily review

Example Workflows