AutoRAG Librarian Skill

Use this skill when AutoRAG is already configured and the user asks to search, summarize, compare, or answer questions from local PDFs, wikis, notes, research papers, knowledge bases, or configured datasources.

AutoRAG is the specialized librarian agent. One configured model plans the search, calls MinSync, Jikji, datasource, and filesystem tools, reads sources, judges evidence, and curates the final answer. There is no subagent or separate model role.

Indexing and refresh read source documents and write only under the configured workspace .autorag/ directory and Jikji's central store (<OS data dir>/jikji/, plus a .jikji_agent_map.md guide in each indexed root). The librarian may organize, create, or modify the user's own files in local sessions when the user asks; it never deletes permanently (OS trash only) and lists every change as old path → new path. Do not move, rename, edit, or delete source files on your own initiative while searching or diagnosing.

Preflight

Confirm a config exists at --config, AUTORAG_CONFIG, $AUTORAG_HOME/config.json, or ~/.autorag/config.json. Inspect only non-secret searchPaths and model metadata, then run:

autorag duplicates --json
autorag status --json
autorag health --json

Duplicate-file review

Use autorag duplicates when the user asks to find duplicate files, choose likely latest copies, or reduce corpus/index space. The command and the scan_duplicate_documents Agent tool are read-only and never delete or move source files. Exact means dupey's canonical extracted-text hash matches; near/contains families require human review. Exact duplicate exclusion during refresh is enabled by default and can be disabled with "excludeExactDuplicates": false in config.json.

Converting files

The convert_files and list_file_conversions Agent tools run the Filee command line to convert local files offline: documents, spreadsheets, slides, HWP/HWPX, images, e-books, archives, audio, video, data, and subtitles. They work on any path the user names, not only the configured roots. This is the one exception to the "never write source files" rule above: a conversion writes a new file and never touches its source. An existing output name gets a number added unless the user asks to replace it, in which case pass overwrite: true. Never delete the source unless the user asked.

Each converted file is checked with dupey compare against its source, using dupey's own thresholds, so the report says whether a later scan will group them: exact (same canonical text, for example DOCX to HWPX), near (same document in another format, for example Markdown to TXT), different (text differs, typically layout formats such as PDF), unsupported (dupey cannot read the format, for example HTML or images), or unavailable (dupey not installed). The command line is filee.binaryPath if set, else a filee/filee-cli on PATH, else the pinned filee-cli release that autorag setup (or the first conversion) downloads into <AUTORAG_HOME>/tools/filee-cli/; "filee": { "autoInstall": false } forbids that download. The system prompt carries the conversion map (which format family converts to which, and the two-step chain when no direct route exists), so plan from it instead of probing. "filee": { "enabled": false } in config.json removes both tools; filee.timeoutMs (default 30 minutes) and filee.dataDir (Filee's own settings and engines, FILEE_DATA_DIR) tune them.

Excluding local files from the index

"excludePaths" in config.json lists files or folders (absolute, or relative to workspacePath) that refresh keeps out of the parsed mirror and MinSync. A folder entry excludes everything under it. Removing an entry and running autorag refresh --method minsync indexes the file again. Excluded sources are recorded as user-excluded skips, so they are not reported as stale. Jikji indexes the source folders directly and is not refreshed here, so AutoRAG also drops excluded paths from the jikji_find answer pack and the baseline prefetch at retrieval time; the on-disk .jikji_agent_map.md stays complete, and direct file reads remain available.

status is model-free and path-opaque. health resolves the single model, checks credential presence, and normally probes one live completion. If the model, authentication, configuration, or indexes are unhealthy, use autorag-setup rather than guessing private provider details.

MinSync and Jikji should normally be healthy. Answering a question never builds or installs them: autorag refresh auto-installs both by default and builds their indexes incrementally. If they are missing or stale, run a full autorag refresh or return to setup rather than silently degrading to lexical-only search.

Search

Prefer --json --debug when another agent will consume the result. --json alone omits sessionId. --debug adds session/diagnostics fields and does not print filesystem paths.

autorag search "what were the key findings in the Q3 report" --top-k 5 --json --debug

--json --debug includes answer, numbered results (number, title, summary, optional source), and sessionId. --json without --debug is only answer plus results. Every bracketed [n] citation in answer resolves to a results[].number of the same response; an unmatched citation is removed and reported as a citation-without-result diagnostic. Within one conversation (an interactive session, including a resumed one), a source keeps the number it was first shown with and a new source gets the next unused number, so results[].number can skip numbers and need not start at 1 on a later turn.

To inspect the exact persisted evidence behind numbered results, use:

autorag evidence <sessionId> --result 1 --json

The response includes the original source, retrieval method, stable evidence ID, raw excerpt/content, and any available chunkIndex, lineNumber, retrievalResultId, and metadata. Omit --result to inspect every result in the session. Prefer this command whenever the caller wants detailed chunk text rather than only the curated summary.

• --scope narrows datasource retrieval to a requested sub-path (ordinary per-query filtering).
• --json is required for programmatic consumption.
• --debug is required for sessionId and diagnostics in search output.
• autorag evidence is the detailed source/chunk inspection path.

Do not bypass the librarian with ad hoc raw search when the user requested AutoRAG. The search loop can use Jikji, MinSync lexical/vector/hybrid retrieval, datasource retrieval, and direct source reading as appropriate. If search fails because of model, provider, auth, or timeout problems, diagnose with autorag health --json.

Every search is two-phase: a fast answer, then verification. With Jev on (the default, OpenRouter), Jev first routes the question:

• General knowledge or small talk is answered directly.
• A request to view or change AutoRAG's own settings (model, providers, datasources) is handled by the agent itself: it loads the setup skill, edits the active config, verifies it, and reports what changed. The running agent keeps its startup model; changes apply to the next autorag launch.
• A request to act on files or folders (move, bulk rename, rename by content, convert, sort) is carried out in one tool turn with no retrieval and no verification, and reports every change as old path → new path.
• Anything else that needs no retrieval (commit, push, open a PR, run a build) is carried out in one tool turn the same way.
• Private-data questions use local search; the agent decides on web search after the fast answer.
• A multi-part question is split into up to five parallel search queries.
• On local search, Jev also picks which registered datasources (Slack, Discord, KakaoTalk, email, ...) to search before the fast answer, from each datasource's description and where similar past questions were answered; their chunks are reranked together with local file evidence.

After the fast answer, Jev ends the run if the answer is complete and evidence-backed. So results may come straight from the fast answer, with no verification phase. --debug diagnostics show the decision: query-routed (branch and queries), datasources-selected (datasources searched or skipped, with probabilities), follow-up-skipped (fast answer final), or query-route-fallback (Jev unavailable, single local search).

Maintenance

autorag setup --format json
autorag status --json
autorag health --json
autorag refresh --json
autorag refresh --method minsync,jikji --json
autorag watch --once --json
autorag watch
autorag refresh --force --json
autorag index rebuild --yes --json
autorag index reset --method parsed --yes --json
autorag memory inspect --json
autorag tui
autorag automate status --json
autorag automate install --json
autorag automate uninstall --json
autorag automate run invoice --event create:/path/to/file.pdf --json
autorag automate daemon

File-triggered automations live in ~/.autorag/automations.json (automations array of { id, paths, events, include, exclude, run | agent, appendFiles, debounceMs, timeoutMs }). Edit automations.json directly to add or change rules; matched [{ type, path }] events are piped on stdin to run. Use autorag automate install to register the background daemon with launchd, systemd --user, or Windows Task Scheduler.

A rule runs exactly one of run (a command) or agent (an AI agent started in the daemon on each batch of changes):

{ "id": "inbox-triage", "paths": ["~/Downloads"], "include": ["**/*.pdf"],
  "agent": { "profile": "file-triage", "task": "Summarize each new PDF.",
             "retrieval": { "searchAll": true, "datasources": ["kakao"] } } }

agent.profile names a profile defined in code: file-triage (reads, lists and searches files; changes nothing) or file-organizer (also bash, edit, write). A rule never carries a prompt or a tool list, so the rules file cannot grant an agent more than its profile has. retrieval optionally adds search_all_documents and one search_datasource_<id> per listed datasource. Retrieval memory is never connected to an automation agent.

Every agent run gets a loop guard appended to its system prompt, naming the rule's folders, file types and events, and forbidding any change that would fire the rule again, editing the rules file, and running autorag automate. At most one agent run is in flight across all rules, and an agent rule is disabled after 6 runs within 60 seconds (command rules: 20). The run's final reply is the stdout of its log entry.

Prefer a full refresh so parsed mirrors, MinSync, Jikji, configured datasources, and (on Windows) the bundled Everything file-name index stay aligned. --method accepts parsed,minsync,datasources,jikji,everything,all. BM25 is a MinSync retrieval mode, not a --method name. Use --method only for deliberate narrowing. Scheduled maintenance should use non-daemon autorag watch --once, typically every 1 hour, with the same config used by search and no overlapping runs. autorag tui is the shipped beta terminal UI.

Reset and rebuild commands remove only selected workspace .autorag indexes. Never target source documents. memory inspect is read-only and path-opaque.

Rules

• Use only configured and approved search paths.
• Never expose provider credentials or authentication payloads.
• Never invent provider identities or model ids.
• A Pi-usable subscription is valid; a subscription Pi cannot invoke is not.
• Preserve real source mapping.
• Prefer --json --debug when another agent consumes search output.
• Do not invent CLI commands. autorag --help is the command list of record, including the shipped setup, models, tui, and lite commands. autorag <command> --help prints that command's own flags, and autorag --version prints the installed version. See docs/minsync-setup.md#embedding-backends for MinSync setup and embedding-backend selection.