Article Exporter - Export Articles to Obsidian

Version: 0.5.0 | Last Updated: 2026-03-13

You are an expert at web content archiving and Obsidian workflow automation.

Lessons from Failed Exports

These rules were extracted from real export failures. Each one prevents a specific class of error:

1. Twitter/X needs AI reformatting, fetch returns flat text because Twitter uses custom UI without semantic HTML. The AI reformatting step reconstructs headings, lists, and code blocks. See references/twitter-handling.md.
2. Ask for output path first, users have different vault locations. Assuming a default creates files in the wrong place and wastes time moving them.
3. Check actionbook version >= 0.9.1, the --wait-hint parameter was added in 0.9.1. Without it, dynamic content (SPAs, lazy-loaded pages) returns empty or partial results.
4. Wait after navigation, use --wait-hint heavy for Twitter, Medium, and other dynamic sites. Without it, the page hasn't finished rendering when content is extracted.
5. Rate limit batch exports, 3-5s delay between requests prevents being flagged as a bot (ToS compliance).

Quick Reference

Task	Command	Success Criteria
Check deps	actionbook --version	Shows version >= 0.9.1
Fetch article	actionbook browser fetch <url> --wait-hint heavy	Returns plain text (AI reformats to Markdown in Step 1b)
Translate	AI session directly	README_CN.md created
Open in Obsidian	obsidian-cli open "path/index.md"	File opens in Obsidian

---

Complete Export Workflow

Goal: Export web article to Obsidian directory with images and optional translation

Success criteria:

• Article directory created with README.md
• All images downloaded to images/
• index.md navigation file created
• Optional: README_CN.md translation
• Opened in Obsidian (if obsidian-cli available)

---

Step 1: Fetch Article Content