# For AI agents `ocracy` ships artifacts for coding agents alongside its code. This page lists them, says where each lives in the repository, and points at the machine-readable copies of this documentation. ## Skills Skills are folders holding a `SKILL.md` (the [Agent Skills](https://agentskills.io) format): a description that tells an agent when to use it and a body with the procedure. Install one into your agent with `gh skill` (any host: `--agent claude-code`, `copilot`, `cursor`, `codex`, `gemini`), or use the copy bundled in the wheel. ### `ocracy` Extract text from images, scans, screenshots, photos, or PDFs using the `ocracy` package — one uniform interface over many OCR engines (Tesseract, EasyOCR, PaddleOCR, Apple Vision, Google Vision, AWS Textract, Azure, Mathpix, Claude/GPT vision, ...). Use when the user wants to "extract/read/get the text from this image/scan/screenshot/photo/PDF", "OCR this", "image to text", "transcribe handwriting", "pull the text out of a picture", "read a receipt/ form/document", or "turn an equation image into LaTeX". Covers the one-line call, choosing/installing a backend, reading the result (text + boxes + confidence), languages, and the `ocracy` CLI. For *picking* the best engine for a need, see ocracy-choose-backend; for *adding* a new engine, see ocracy-add-backend. ```bash gh skill install thorwhalen/ocracy ocracy --agent claude-code ``` Source: [`ocracy/data/skills/ocracy`](https://github.com/thorwhalen/ocracy/tree/HEAD/ocracy/data/skills/ocracy) (bundled with the pip package). ### `ocracy-add-backend` Build a new OCR backend façade for the ocracy package — wrap any engine or service (Tesseract, EasyOCR, PaddleOCR, Google Vision, AWS Textract, Mathpix, a VLM, ...) behind ocracy's uniform `ocr()` interface. Use when the user wants to "add a backend to ocracy", "wrap in ocracy", "implement an OCR façade", "make ocracy support ", pick a backend from the ledger and make it real, or extend ocracy's engine coverage. Walks through scaffolding from the ledger, filling the config/param_map, implementing the adapter's `_read`, normalizing output to `OcrResult`, handling credentials, packaging the extra, and validating end to end. ```bash gh skill install thorwhalen/ocracy ocracy-add-backend --agent claude-code ``` Source: [`ocracy/data/skills/ocracy-add-backend`](https://github.com/thorwhalen/ocracy/tree/HEAD/ocracy/data/skills/ocracy-add-backend) (bundled with the pip package). ### `ocracy-choose-backend` Choose or compare OCR engines/services using ocracy's data-driven ledger (64 researched backends). Use when the user asks "which OCR should I use", "what's the best OCR for ", "compare OCR engines/services", "local vs cloud OCR", "cheapest OCR API", "free offline OCR", "OCR options", or wants to weigh accuracy / price / privacy / language coverage before committing to a backend. Filters the ledger by feature and explains the trade-offs. For actually running OCR see ocracy; for adding a new engine see ocracy-add-backend. ```bash gh skill install thorwhalen/ocracy ocracy-choose-backend --agent claude-code ``` Source: [`ocracy/data/skills/ocracy-choose-backend`](https://github.com/thorwhalen/ocracy/tree/HEAD/ocracy/data/skills/ocracy-choose-backend) (bundled with the pip package). ### `ocracy-install-backend` Install / set up an ocracy OCR backend that isn't available yet — handle the heavy or awkward installs (PaddleOCR's framework, Torch-based EasyOCR/TrOCR/ pix2tex, Tesseract's *system* binary, GPU vs CPU wheels, first-run model-weight downloads, remote-API credentials). Use when ocracy raises "Backend X requires: pip install ...", an `ImportError` for an OCR engine, when the user says "install for ocracy", "set up paddleocr/easyocr/tesseract", "make this OCR backend work", "ocracy backend not installed", or "which OCR backends do I have installed". Drives `ocracy.requirements()`, `ocracy.check()`, `ocracy.doctor()`, and `ocracy.install()`. To *pick* a backend first see ocracy-choose-backend; to *use* one see ocracy. ```bash gh skill install thorwhalen/ocracy ocracy-install-backend --agent claude-code ``` Source: [`ocracy/data/skills/ocracy-install-backend`](https://github.com/thorwhalen/ocracy/tree/HEAD/ocracy/data/skills/ocracy-install-backend) (bundled with the pip package). The bundled skills are also on disk after `pip install ocracy`, under the package's `data/skills/` directory; link them into an agent without network access with `skill link-skills `. ## Instruction files Files agents read before working in this repository. - [`CLAUDE.md`](https://github.com/thorwhalen/ocracy/tree/HEAD/CLAUDE.md): read by Claude Code ## Machine-readable documentation This site publishes the same documentation in forms that fit an agent's context window: - [`llms.txt`](https://thorwhalen.github.io/ocracy/llms.txt): an index of every page with a one-line description ([llms.txt](https://llmstxt.org) format) - [`ocracy.md`](https://thorwhalen.github.io/ocracy/ocracy.md): the whole documentation as one Markdown file - `.html.md`: a rendered Markdown twin of every page, advertised from each page's `` with `` - [`objects.inv`](https://thorwhalen.github.io/ocracy/objects.inv): the Sphinx inventory: a symbol-to-URL index (`sphobjinv convert plain objects.inv -`)