Summary
TL;DR: Summarize URLs or files with the summarize CLI. Works with web pages, PDFs, images, audio, and YouTube.
Summarize is a versatile skill that lets your AI agent condense content from almost any source. Give it a URL, a PDF, an image, an audio file, or a YouTube video and it returns a clean summary.
It uses the summarize CLI under the hood, which handles all the heavy lifting of fetching, parsing, and extracting text from different formats.
This is one of those skills you install once and use every day. It turns your agent into a research assistant that can quickly digest long articles, meeting recordings, or documentation without you reading every word.
Use cases
- Summarizing long web articles or blog posts in seconds
- Extracting key points from PDF documents and research papers
- Getting transcripts and summaries from YouTube videos
- Digesting audio recordings from meetings or podcasts
Installation
Run this command to install the skill on your OpenClaw agent:
npx clawhub@latest install summarizeSecurity scan
The skill is internally consistent with its stated purpose — it is an instruction-only wrapper that expects the external 'summarize' CLI and standard LLM provider API keys — nothing obviously out of scope or malicious was found.
SKILL.md
---
name: summarize
description: Summarize URLs or files with the summarize CLI (web, PDFs, images, audio, YouTube).
homepage: https://summarize.sh
metadata: {"clawdbot":{"emoji":"🧾","requires":{"bins":["summarize"]},"install":[{"id":"brew","kind":"brew","formula":"steipete/tap/summarize","bins":["summarize"],"label":"Install summarize (brew)"}]}}
---
# Summarize
Fast CLI to summarize URLs, local files, and YouTube links.
## Quick start
```bash
summarize "https://example.com" --model google/gemini-3-flash-preview
summarize "/path/to/file.pdf" --model google/gemini-3-flash-preview
summarize "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ" --youtube auto
```
## Model + keys
Set the API key for your chosen provider:
- OpenAI: `OPENAI_API_KEY`
- Anthropic: `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`
- xAI: `XAI_API_KEY`
- Google: `GEMINI_API_KEY` (aliases: `GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_API_KEY`, `GOOGLE_API_KEY`)
Default model is `google/gemini-3-flash-preview` if none is set.
## Useful flags
- `--length short|medium|long|xl|xxl|<chars>`
- `--max-output-tokens <count>`
- `--extract-only` (URLs only)
- `--json` (machine readable)
- `--firecrawl auto|off|always` (fallback extraction)
- `--youtube auto` (Apify fallback if `APIFY_API_TOKEN` set)
## Config
Optional config file: `~/.summarize/config.json`
```json
{ "model": "openai/gpt-5.2" }
```
Optional services:
- `FIRECRAWL_API_KEY` for blocked sites
- `APIFY_API_TOKEN` for YouTube fallback
Version history
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Frequently asked questions
It supports web URLs, PDFs, images, audio files, and YouTube videos. The summarize CLI handles parsing each format automatically.
Installation method
Send this prompt to your agent to install the skill
npx clawhub@latest install summarizeSkill info
Files
Skill data sourced from ClawHub