---

name: readwise description: Manage Readwise highlights, books, daily review, and Reader documents (save-for-later / read-it-later). Use when the user wants to save articles or URLs to Reader, browse their reading list, search saved documents, review highlights, create or manage highlights and notes, check their daily review, list books/sources, or interact with Readwise/Reader in any way.

Readwise & Reader

Interact with Readwise (highlights, books, daily review) and Reader (save-for-later documents) via the bundled CLI script.

Setup

Requires READWISE_TOKEN env var. Get a token at https://readwise.io/access_token — works for both Readwise and Reader APIs.

CLI Usage

scripts/readwise.sh [--pretty] <command> [args...]

Reader Commands (Documents)

# Save a URL to Reader
readwise.sh save "https://example.com/article" --location later --tags "ai,research"

# List reading list (inbox)
readwise.sh list --location later --limit 10

# Search documents by title/author
readwise.sh search "transformer"

# Update a document
readwise.sh update DOC_ID --location archive --tags "done,good"

# Delete a document
readwise.sh delete DOC_ID

# List all tags
readwise.sh tags

Readwise Commands (Highlights & Books)

# Get today's daily review
readwise.sh review

# Export highlights (optionally for a specific book)
readwise.sh highlights --book-id 12345 --limit 20

# Get a single highlight
readwise.sh highlight 456789

# Create a highlight
readwise.sh highlight-create --text "Important quote" --title "Book Name" --note "My thought"

# Update highlight color/note
readwise.sh highlight-update 456789 --color blue --note "Updated note"

# Delete a highlight
readwise.sh highlight-delete 456789

# List books/sources
readwise.sh books --category articles --limit 10

# Get book details
readwise.sh book 12345

Output

All commands output JSON. Add --pretty for formatted output.

Common Workflows

Save article and tag it:

readwise.sh save "https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.12345" --title "Cool Paper" --tags "ml,papers" --location later

Check reading list:

readwise.sh list --location later --limit 5

Today's review highlights:

readwise.sh review

Find highlights about a topic: Export all highlights then filter, or search Reader docs:

readwise.sh search "attention mechanism"
readwise.sh highlights --updated-after "2024-01-01"

Archive finished articles:

readwise.sh update DOC_ID --location archive

API Reference

For detailed endpoint documentation, parameters, and response shapes, read references/api.md.

Key details:

• Rate limits: Readwise v2: 240 req/min (20/min for list endpoints). Reader v3: 20 req/min (50/min for create/update).
• Categories: Books: books, articles, tweets, podcasts. Reader: article, email, rss, highlight, note, pdf, epub, tweet, video.
• Locations (Reader): new, later, shortlist, archive, feed
• Highlight colors: yellow, blue, pink, orange, green, purple