X Article Extractor (Omni-Article)#

A specialized skill designed for AI Agents to capture long-form "Articles" from X (formerly Twitter). It utilizes a headless browser to bypass basic access restrictions and produces structured Markdown.

Capabilities#

• Zero-Config Extraction: No Cookies, Tokens, or API Keys required.
• On-Demand Browser Setup: Automatic lazy-loading of Playwright and Chromium core.
• Asset Preservation: Maintains original image URLs within the Markdown.
• Reference Handling: Automatically converts quoted posts into standard Markdown links.
• Clean Output: Strips UI clutter, focusing solely on the article body.

Prerequisites & Installation#

The tool manages its own browser dependencies. Simply install the package:

sh

pip install omni-article-markdown

Important (First Run Only): The Playwright engine and Chromium core are lazy-loaded. They will be automatically downloaded and configured during the first execution. Expect a significant delay (1-3 minutes depending on bandwidth) during the initial run. Subsequent runs will be near-instant.

AI Agent Instructions#

When to use this skill#

Call this skill when a user provides an X (Twitter) URL and asks to "save," "read," "extract," or "convert" the long-form content.

Parameters#

• url (Required): The full X post/article URL.
• --output-dir (Optional): Target directory for the .md file.

First-Run Strategy#

If the environment is fresh, the Agent should inform the user: "I'm setting up the browser environment for the first time, this might take a minute..." to prevent the user from thinking the process has hung.

Usage Examples#

Standard Extraction#

sh

# Basic command
mdcli https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1234567890

Save to Specific Directory#

sh

mdcli https://x.com/username/status/xxxx -s ./downloads/articles/

Troubleshooting for Agents#

• Extended Latency: If the command takes >60s on the first run, do not kill the process; it is likely downloading the Chromium core.
• Network Error: Ensure the environment has internet access to both x.com and the Playwright binary mirrors.

GitHub Repository#

caol64/omni-article-markdown

License#

MIT