Immersive Reading: Turn Dense Essays into Interactive Reading Editions

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🛠️ Immersive Reading

What it isAgent skill that builds a static “reading edition” from a URL, essay, transcript, or local file
PlatformClaude Code, Codex, Cursor, Antigravity, other SKILL.md agents
PriceFree, open source (MIT)
Linkgithub.com/ryannli/immersive-reading

Long essays are brutal on a plain HTML page. No landmarks, no search, no place for your own notes. You either skim or you white-knuckle the scroll. Immersive Reading hands the source to your coding agent and gets back a small static reader: chapters, anchor quotes, attribution, search, highlights, notes, light/dark themes, optional bilingual mode. The demo that sold me was Paul Graham’s How to Do Great Work turned into a live reading space.

  1. It is not a summary bot. The point is co-reading. The agent structures the original text into a path you can walk: chapter openings, section beats, scroll transitions. The words stay theirs. The affordances are new.

  2. Input is loose. Paste a URL, essay, podcast transcript, paper, or local file. The skill validates article data, pulls source media when it can, and emits static output you can open locally or push to Vercel.

  3. The study surface is the product. Search, highlights, copyable notes, source attribution, theme toggle. Optional bilingual mode if you ask for it (Spanish in the README example). This is closer to a personal textbook than a bookmarklet.

  4. It ships as a reusable agent skill, not a SaaS app. Install once, run on the next piece you care about. Ryan Li’s repo includes the immersive-reading skill under skills/ plus a Claude Code plugin path if you want slash commands.

  5. Early project, honest caveat. About 30 GitHub stars when I looked. You need a capable agent session and whatever API costs that implies. Output quality will vary with the model and how messy the source is. PDFs with broken layout will fight you.

  6. Wrong tool if you want a one-click browser extension with zero agent setup. Right tool if you already live in Claude Code or Codex and want reading spaces you own as static files.

Install & first run

Cursor or Codex (skills CLI):

npx skills add ryannli/immersive-reading

Pick your agent when prompted. No-prompt global install for Claude Code:

npx skills add ryannli/immersive-reading -g -a claude-code -y

Claude Code plugin (four separate messages):

/plugin marketplace add ryannli/immersive-reading
/plugin install immersive-reading@immersive-reading
/reload-plugins
/immersive-reading:immersive-reading

First run (works the same idea in Codex or Cursor after install):

Use $immersive-reading on this article:
https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html

Bilingual example:

Use $immersive-reading on this link and add Spanish bilingual mode:
https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html

The agent picks an output folder, builds the static site, and tells you when it is ready. Full options live in the README.

Worth your time if: you hoard long essays and transcripts, already use agent skills for work, and want a reader you control instead of another locked-in highlight app.

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