Summarize — OpenClaw Skill

What This Skill Does

The Summarize skill gives your OpenClaw AI agent the ability to extract and condense content from URLs, YouTube videos, PDFs, and local files using the summarize CLI from summarize.sh. When you paste a link or point to a file, the skill fetches the content, processes it through an AI model, and returns a summary at your preferred length -- from a quick one-paragraph overview to a comprehensive multi-page breakdown.

For YouTube videos, the skill performs best-effort transcript extraction without requiring yt-dlp or any video downloader. It can pull transcripts automatically, summarize them, and let you drill into specific sections or time ranges on demand. This makes it the go-to skill for quickly understanding the content of a long video, podcast episode, or research paper without watching or reading the entire thing.

The skill supports multiple AI providers (Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI) for the summarization step, has configurable output lengths, and can return structured JSON for programmatic use. Optional Firecrawl integration handles content extraction from sites that block standard scraping.

Example Prompts

"Summarize this article: https://example.com/long-feature-story"

"What is this YouTube video about? https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ"

"Give me a short summary of this PDF report"

"Transcribe this YouTube video and highlight the key points from the first 20 minutes"

"Summarize this podcast episode in three bullet points"

"Extract the transcript from this video and save it as a note"

"Give me an XL-length summary of this research paper"

"What are the main takeaways from this blog post?"

Requirements

• summarize CLI installed
• An API key for at least one supported provider: Google (GEMINI_API_KEY), OpenAI, Anthropic, or xAI
• Optional: FIRECRAWL_API_KEY for blocked sites, APIFY_API_TOKEN for YouTube fallback

On KiwiClaw: Pre-installed. The skill works out of the box with the managed LLM keys. Just paste a URL and ask for a summary.

Self-hosted: Install via Homebrew: brew install steipete/tap/summarize. Set your preferred API key as an environment variable (e.g., GEMINI_API_KEY).

Setup on KiwiClaw

1. Open your KiwiClaw dashboard
2. Navigate to Skills in your agent settings
3. The Summarize skill is enabled by default
4. Paste any URL and ask your agent to summarize it
5. Optionally configure your preferred summary length in skill settings

Setup Self-Hosted

1. Install summarize: brew install steipete/tap/summarize
2. Set an API key: export GEMINI_API_KEY=your-key (or OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI)
3. Test: summarize "https://example.com"
4. Optional config file at ~/.summarize/config.json for default model and settings
5. Ensure the skill is enabled in your OpenClaw configuration

Related Skills

• BlogWatcher -- monitor blogs for new posts, then summarize them
• Apple Notes -- save summaries directly to your notes
• Gemini -- delegate summarization to Google's AI models
• Notion -- save research summaries to your Notion workspace

FAQ

Can the Summarize skill transcribe YouTube videos?

Yes. The skill provides best-effort transcript extraction from YouTube URLs without needing yt-dlp installed. Use the --youtube auto flag for automatic transcript retrieval. If the transcript is very long, the agent will provide a summary first and offer to expand specific sections.

What file formats can the Summarize skill process?

The skill can summarize web URLs (articles, blog posts), YouTube videos, PDFs, and other local files. It uses AI models from Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, or xAI to generate the summary, with configurable length options from short to xxl.

Which AI model does the Summarize skill use?

By default it uses google/gemini-3-flash-preview, but you can configure any supported model including OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI models. Set your preferred model in ~/.summarize/config.json or pass it via the --model flag.

Can I control the length of the summary?

Yes. The skill supports a --length flag with preset options: short, medium, long, xl, and xxl. You can also specify an exact character count. This lets you get anything from a one-paragraph overview to a comprehensive multi-page summary.