calibre-metadata-apply

A skill for updating metadata of existing Calibre books.

Skill selection contract (strict)

• If the user intent is metadata edit/fix/update, this skill is mandatory.
• If the request mentions an ID together with edit/fix/update intent (e.g. ID1011 タイトル修正, ID1011 のタイトルを直して), this skill is mandatory.
• If the request mentions an ID but only for viewing/checking/confirming (e.g. ID1021 を確認して, ID1021 の詳細), do NOT use this skill — route to calibre-catalog-read.
• calibre-catalog-read must not be used for those edit intents.

Use this skill when the user asks any of:

• "ID指定でタイトル修正"
• "メタデータ編集"
• title/authors/series/series_index/tags/publisher/pubdate/languages updates

Do NOT use this skill for:

• Read-only lookups (e.g. "ID 1021 を確認して", "ID 1021 の情報を見せて", "show me book 1021")
• Checking what metadata a book currently has without intent to change it
• Those must use calibre-catalog-read

Requirements

• calibredb must be available on PATH in the runtime environment
• subagent-spawn-command-builder installed (for spawn payload generation)
• pdffonts is optional/recommended for PDF evidence checks
• Reachable Calibre Content server URL
• http://HOST:PORT/#LIBRARY_ID
• If LIBRARY_ID is unknown, use #- once to list available IDs on the server.
• --with-library can be omitted only when one of these is configured:
• env: CALIBRE_WITH_LIBRARY or CALIBRE_LIBRARY_URL or CALIBRE_CONTENT_SERVER_URL
• optional library id completion: CALIBRE_LIBRARY_ID
• Read the "Calibre Content Server" section of TOOLS.md for the correct --with-library URL.
• Host failover (IP change resilience):
• Optional env: CALIBRE_SERVER_HOSTS=host1,host2,...
• Script auto-tries candidates, including WSL host-side nameserver from /etc/resolv.conf.
• If authentication is enabled, prefer /home/altair/.openclaw/.env:
• CALIBRE_USERNAME=
• CALIBRE_PASSWORD=
• Auth scheme policy for this workflow:
• Non-SSL deployment assumes Digest authentication.
• Do not pass auth mode arguments such as --auth-mode / --auth-scheme.
• Pass --password-env CALIBRE_PASSWORD (username auto-loads from env)
• You can still override explicitly with --username .

Supported fields

Direct fields (set_metadata --field)

• title
• title_sort
• authors (string with & or array)
• author_sort
• series
• series_index
• tags (string or array)
• publisher
• pubdate (YYYY-MM-DD)
• languages
• comments

Helper fields

• comments_html (OC marker block upsert)
• analysis (auto-generates analysis HTML for comments)
• analysis_tags (adds tags)
• tags_merge (default true)
• tags_remove (remove specific tags after merge)

Required execution flow

A. Target confirmation (mandatory)

1. Run read-only lookup to narrow candidates
2. Show id,title,authors,series,series_index
3. Get user confirmation for final target IDs
4. Build JSONL using only confirmed IDs

B. Proposal synthesis (when metadata is missing)

1. Collect evidence from file extraction + web sources
2. Show one merged proposal table with:
• candidate, source, confidence (high|medium|low)
• title_sort_candidate, author_sort_candidate
3. Get user decision:
• approve all
• approve only:
• reject:
• edit: =
4. Apply only approved/finalized fields
5. If confidence is low or sources conflict, keep fields empty

C. Apply

1. Run dry-run first (mandatory)
2. Run --apply only after explicit user approval
3. Re-read and report final values

Analysis worker policy

• Use subagent-spawn-command-builder to generate sessions_spawn payload for heavy candidate generation
• task is required.
• Profile should include model/thinking/timeout/cleanup for this workflow.
• Use lightweight subagent model for analysis (avoid main heavy model)
• Keep final decisions + dry-run/apply in main

Data flow disclosure

• Local execution:
• Build calibredb set_metadata commands from JSONL.
• Read/write local state files (state/runs.json).
• Subagent execution (optional for heavy candidate generation):
• Uses sessions_spawn via subagent-spawn-command-builder.
• Text/metadata sent to subagent can reach model endpoints configured by runtime profile.
• Remote write:
• calibredb set_metadata updates metadata on the target Calibre Content server.

Security rules:

• Prefer env-based password (--password-env CALIBRE_PASSWORD) over inline --password.
• If user does not want external model/subagent processing, keep flow local and skip subagent orchestration.
• In agent/chat execution, do not call calibredb directly for edit operations.
• Always execute node skills/calibre-metadata-apply/scripts/calibredb_apply.mjs.
• Never run calibre-server from this skill.
• This workflow always targets an already-running Calibre Content server.

Connection bootstrap (mandatory)

• Do not ask the user for --with-library first.
• First, execute using saved defaults (env) with no explicit --with-library.
• Scripts auto-load .env and resolve CALIBRE_WITH_LIBRARY / CALIBRE_CONTENT_SERVER_URL.
• Ask user for URL only when command output shows unresolved connection, such as:
• missing --with-library
• unable to resolve usable --with-library
• repeated connection failures for all candidates

Long-run turn-split policy (library-wide)

For library-wide heavy processing, always use turn-split execution.

Unknown-document recovery flow (M3)

Batch sizing rule:

• Keep each unknown-document batch small enough to show full row-by-row results in chat (no representative sampling).
• If unresolved items remain, stop and wait for explicit user instruction to start the next batch.

User intervention checkpoints (fixed)

1. Light pass (metadata-only)
• Always run this stage by default (no extra user instruction required)
• Analyze existing metadata only (no file content read)
• Present a table to user:
• current file/title
• recommended title/metadata
• confidence/evidence summary
• Stop and wait for user instruction before any deeper stage

1. On user request: page-1 pass
• Read only the first page and refine proposals
• Report delta from light pass

1. If still uncertain: deep pass
• Read first 5 pages + last 5 pages
• Add web evidence search
• Produce finalized proposal with confidence + rationale

1. Approval gate
• Show detailed findings and request explicit approval before apply

Pending and unsupported handling

• Use pending-review tag for unresolved/hold items.
• If document is unresolved in current flow, do not force metadata guesses.
• Tag with pending-review and keep for follow-up investigation.

Diff report format (for unknown batch runs)

Return full results (not samples):

• execution summary (target/changed/pending/skipped/error)
• full changed list with id + key before/after fields
• full pending list with id + reason
• full error list with id + error summary
• confidence must be expressed as high|medium|low

Runtime artifact policy

• Keep run-state and temporary artifacts only while a run is active.
• On successful completion, remove per-run state/artifacts.
• On failure, keep minimal artifacts only for retry/debug, then clean up after resolution.

Internal orchestration (recommended)

• Use lightweight subagent for all analysis stages
• Keep apply decisions in main session
• Persist run state for each stage in state/runs.json

Turn 1 (start)

1. Main defines scope
2. Main generates spawn payload via subagent-spawn-command-builder (profile example: calibre-meta), then calls sessions_spawn
3. Save run_id/session_key/task via scripts/run_state.mjs upsert
4. Immediately tell the user this is a subagent job and state the execution model used for analysis
5. Reply with "analysis started" and keep normal chat responsive

Turn 2 (completion)

1. Receive subagent completion notice
2. Save result JSON
3. Complete state handling via scripts/handle_completion.mjs --run-id ... --result-json ...
4. Return summarized proposal (apply only when needed)

Run state file:

• state/runs.json

PDF extraction policy

1. Try ebook-convert first
2. If empty/failed, fallback to pdftotext
3. If both fail, switch to web-evidence-first mode

Sort reading policy

• Use user-configured reading_script for Japanese/non-Latin sort fields
• katakana / hiragana / latin
• Ask once on first use, then reuse for the session
• Default policy is full reading (no truncation)
• Read the "Calibre Content Server" section of TOOLS.md for the configured reading_script value; pass it as a CLI argument when needed.

Usage

Dry-run:

cat changes.jsonl | node skills/calibre-metadata-apply/scripts/calibredb_apply.mjs \
  --with-library "http://127.0.0.1:8080/#MyLibrary" \
  --password-env CALIBRE_PASSWORD \
  --lang ja

Dry-run (when default library is preconfigured via env/config):

cat changes.jsonl | node skills/calibre-metadata-apply/scripts/calibredb_apply.mjs \
  --password-env CALIBRE_PASSWORD \
  --lang ja

Apply:

cat changes.jsonl | node skills/calibre-metadata-apply/scripts/calibredb_apply.mjs \
  --with-library "http://127.0.0.1:8080/#MyLibrary" \
  --password-env CALIBRE_PASSWORD \
  --apply

Do not

• Do not run direct --apply using ambiguous title matches only
• Do not include unconfirmed IDs in apply payload
• Do not auto-fill low-confidence candidates without explicit confirmation
• Do not start a local server with guessed path like ~/Calibre Library