Paper Archive

Use this skill to archive academic papers from ~/Downloads into a structured iCloud directory with auto-generated Obsidian reading notes.

Load References When Needed

• Read references/categories.md before classifying a paper.
• Read references/obsidian-note-template.md before creating the Obsidian note.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
PAPER_ARCHIVE_DIR	~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Documents/books/技术类/papers	PDF archive root
OBSIDIAN_VAULT	(defined in .profile.darwin)	Obsidian Vault root

Workflow

Execute these 6 steps in order. Use AskUserQuestion for user decisions — never skip confirmations.

Step 1: Scan Downloads

ls ~/Downloads/*.pdf

List all PDF files in ~/Downloads. Show the list to the user.

Step 2: User Selects PDF

Use AskUserQuestion to let the user pick which PDF(s) to archive. Process one PDF at a time through steps 3–6, then loop back for the next.

Step 3: Read PDF & Extract Metadata

Use the Read tool to read the first 5–10 pages of the selected PDF. Extract:

• title: full paper title
• authors: list of authors
• year: publication year
• venue: conference/journal name (e.g., NeurIPS 2024, Nature)
• abstract: full abstract text
• keywords: topic keywords

If metadata is ambiguous, infer from content. If the PDF is unreadable or not a paper, inform the user and skip.

Step 4: AI Classify + User Confirm

1. Read references/categories.md to load the classification scheme.
2. Based on extracted metadata, assign the best-fit category.
3. Generate the target filename using the naming convention:
   • Format: {FirstAuthorLastName}{Year}_{Title_Words}.pdf
   • Title words: capitalize each word, join with _, drop articles/prepositions, max ~6 words
   • Examples: Vaswani2017_Attention_Is_All_You_Need.pdf, Brown2020_Language_Models_Few_Shot_Learners.pdf
4. Present to the user for confirmation:
   • Title, authors, year, venue
   • Proposed category
   • Proposed filename
   • Target path: $PAPER_ARCHIVE_DIR/{category}/{filename}
5. Let the user modify category or filename before proceeding.

Step 5: Move + Rename

mkdir -p "$PAPER_ARCHIVE_DIR/{category}"
mv ~/Downloads/{original}.pdf "$PAPER_ARCHIVE_DIR/{category}/{new_filename}.pdf"

Verify the move succeeded. If $PAPER_ARCHIVE_DIR is not set, fall back to the default path.

Step 6: Create Obsidian Note

1. Read references/obsidian-note-template.md to load the template.
2. Fill in all frontmatter fields and the Abstract section from extracted metadata.
3. Leave other sections (Key Contributions, Methodology, etc.) empty for the user to fill during reading.
4. Write the note to: $OBSIDIAN_VAULT/Reading/papers/{Title}.md
   • Create the papers/ directory if it doesn't exist: mkdir -p "$OBSIDIAN_VAULT/Reading/papers"
   • Title in the filename should match the paper title (spaces allowed, Obsidian handles them).
5. Confirm creation to the user.

After step 6, if there are more PDFs selected in step 2, loop back to step 3 for the next PDF.

Execution Rules

• 所有用户可见的输出使用中文，包括确认提示、状态信息、错误消息等。
• Always confirm category and filename with the user before moving files.
• Never overwrite an existing file — if the target path exists, ask the user.
• Use $PAPER_ARCHIVE_DIR if set; otherwise use the default iCloud path.
• Use $OBSIDIAN_VAULT for the vault path — it must be set.
• Quote all file paths (iCloud paths contain spaces and CJK characters).
• The pdf_path in the Obsidian note should be the final archived path.