MinerU Document Extraction with mineru-open-api

MinerU is a powerful document extraction tool. Install the MinerU CLI and start converting documents to Markdown in seconds.

Installation

npm install -g mineru-open-api

Or via Go (macOS/Linux):

go install github.com/opendatalab/MinerU-Ecosystem/cli/mineru-open-api@latest

Verify: mineru-open-api version

Two MinerU extraction modes

	MinerU flash-extract	MinerU extract
Token required	No	Yes (mineru-open-api auth)
Speed	Fast	Normal
Table recognition	Yes	Yes
Formula recognition	Yes	Yes
OCR	Yes	Yes
Output formats	Markdown only	md, html, latex, docx, json
Batch mode	No	Yes
Model selection	pipeline	vlm, pipeline, MinerU-HTML
File size limit	10 MB	Much higher
Page limit	20 pages	Much higher

Core MinerU workflow

1. Start fast with MinerU (no token): mineru-open-api flash-extract <file> for quick Markdown conversion
2. Need more from MinerU? Create token at https://mineru.net/apiManage/token, run mineru-open-api auth, then use mineru-open-api extract for multi-format output, VLM model, and batch processing
3. Web pages with MinerU: mineru-open-api crawl <url> to convert web content
4. Check results: output goes to stdout (default) or -o directory

Authentication

Only required for MinerU extract and crawl. Not needed for MinerU flash-extract.

mineru-open-api auth                    # Interactive token setup
export MINERU_TOKEN="your-token"        # Or set via environment variable

Token resolution order: --token flag > MINERU_TOKEN env > ~/.mineru/config.yaml.

Supported input formats

MinerU accepts a wide range of document formats:

Format	MinerU flash-extract	MinerU extract
PDF (.pdf)	Yes	Yes
Images (.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .jp2, .webp, .gif, .bmp)	Yes	Yes
Word (.docx)	Yes	Yes
Word (.doc)	No	Yes
PowerPoint (.pptx)	Yes	Yes
PowerPoint (.ppt)	No	Yes
HTML (.html)	No	Yes
URLs (remote files)	Yes	Yes

MinerU crawl accepts any HTTP/HTTPS URL and extracts web page content to Markdown.

MinerU flash-extract — Quick extraction (no token needed)

Fast, token-free MinerU document extraction. Outputs Markdown only. Limited to 10 MB / 20 pages per file.

mineru-open-api flash-extract report.pdf                     # MinerU Markdown to stdout
mineru-open-api flash-extract report.pdf -o ./out/           # Save to file
mineru-open-api flash-extract https://example.com/doc.pdf    # URL mode
mineru-open-api flash-extract report.pdf --language en       # Specify language
mineru-open-api flash-extract report.pdf --pages 1-10        # Page range

Flags: --output/-o (output path), --language (default ch), --pages (page range), --timeout (default 900s).

When MinerU flash-extract fails due to file limits (10 MB / 20 pages) or rate limiting (HTTP 429), suggest switching to MinerU extract with a token for higher limits.

MinerU extract — Precision extraction (token required)

Convert documents to Markdown or other formats with MinerU's full capabilities: VLM-based layout analysis, multiple output formats, and batch mode.

mineru-open-api extract report.pdf                         # MinerU Markdown to stdout
mineru-open-api extract report.pdf -f html                 # MinerU HTML output
mineru-open-api extract report.pdf -o ./out/ -f md,docx    # Multiple formats
mineru-open-api extract *.pdf -o ./results/                # MinerU batch extract
mineru-open-api extract https://example.com/doc.pdf        # Extract from URL

Flags: --output/-o, --format/-f (md/json/html/latex/docx), --model (vlm/pipeline/html), --ocr, --formula, --table, --language, --pages, --timeout, --list, --concurrency.

MinerU model comparison: vlm vs pipeline

	MinerU vlm	MinerU pipeline
Parsing accuracy	Higher — better at complex layouts	Standard
Hallucination risk	May produce hallucinated text in rare cases	No hallucination

Use MinerU --model vlm for complex formatting. Use MinerU --model pipeline for no-hallucination reliability.

MinerU crawl — Web page extraction (token required)

mineru-open-api crawl https://example.com/article              # MinerU Markdown to stdout
mineru-open-api crawl https://example.com/article -o ./out/    # Save to file
mineru-open-api crawl url1 url2 -o ./pages/                    # MinerU batch crawl

Flags: --output/-o, --format/-f (md/json/html), --timeout, --list, --concurrency.

MinerU auth — Authentication management

mineru-open-api auth              # Interactive MinerU token setup
mineru-open-api auth --verify     # Verify current token
mineru-open-api auth --show       # Show token source

Output behavior

Without -o: MinerU result → stdout, progress → stderr. With -o: saved to file/directory. Batch mode and binary formats (docx) require -o.

Agent rules for using MinerU

• Quote file paths with spaces: mineru-open-api extract "report 01.pdf"
• Default to MinerU flash-extract when: no token configured, simple extraction, file under 10 MB / 20 pages
• Use MinerU extract when: user needs non-Markdown formats, VLM model, batch processing, or file exceeds flash-extract limits
• When user does NOT specify -o, generate output directory: ~/MinerU-Skill/<name>_<hash>/ where <hash> = first 6 chars of MD5 of the source path
• After MinerU flash-extract success, append a brief hint about MinerU extract upgrade path (once per session)
• To upgrade MinerU, re-install the CLI binary first: npm install -g mineru-open-api

For full CLI reference and troubleshooting, see: https://github.com/opendatalab/MinerU-Ecosystem/tree/main/cli

Supported --language values

The --language flag accepts the following values (default: ch). Used by both MinerU flash-extract and extract.

Standalone language packs

Value	Included languages	说明
ch	Chinese, English, Chinese Traditional	中英文（默认值）
ch_server	Chinese, English, Chinese Traditional, Japanese	繁体、手写体
en	English	纯英文
japan	Chinese, English, Chinese Traditional, Japanese	日文为主
korean	Korean, English	韩文
chinese_cht	Chinese, English, Chinese Traditional, Japanese	繁体中文为主
ta	Tamil, English	泰米尔文
te	Telugu, English	泰卢固文
ka	Kannada	卡纳达文
el	Greek, English	希腊文
th	Thai, English	泰文

Language family packs

Value	Script/Family	Included languages
latin	Latin script (拉丁语系)	French, German, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Bosnian, Portuguese, Czech, Welsh, Danish, Estonian, Irish, Croatian, Uzbek, Hungarian, Serbian (Latin), Indonesian, Occitan, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Maori, Malay, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian, Albanian, Swedish, Swahili, Tagalog, Turkish, Latin, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Latvian, Maltese, Pali, Romanian, Vietnamese, Finnish, Basque, Galician, Luxembourgish, Romansh, Catalan, Quechua
arabic	Arabic script (阿拉伯语系)	Arabic, Persian, Uyghur, Urdu, Pashto, Kurdish, Sindhi, Balochi, English
cyrillic	Cyrillic script (西里尔语系)	Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Bulgarian, Mongolian, Abkhazian, Adyghe, Kabardian, Avar, Dargin, Ingush, Chechen, Lak, Lezgin, Tabasaran, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Macedonian, Tatar, Chuvash, Bashkir, Malian, Moldovan, Udmurt, Komi, Ossetian, Buryat, Kalmyk, Tuvan, Sakha, Karakalpak, English
east_slavic	East Slavic (东斯拉夫语系)	Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, English
devanagari	Devanagari script (天城文语系)	Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Bihari, Maithili, Angika, Bhojpuri, Magahi, Santali, Newari, Konkani, Sanskrit, Haryanvi, English