ingestlisted

# ingest: turn documents into Markdown before they cost tokens Reading a PDF, Office file, or image directly is expensive and lossy: the bytes are not text, so an agent burns tokens on encoding noise or cannot read them at all. markitdown (https://github.com/microsoft/markitdown, MIT, Microsoft) converts them to clean Markdown that carries the structure (headings, tables, lists) at a fraction of the tokens. Convert first, then read the Markdown. Run the decision ladder first. Convert only the file the task needs, only the pages or sheets that matter, and read the result the same way you read any file: the part that answers the current question, not the whole thing. Do not bulk-convert a folder "to have it". ## When to use - A task needs what is inside a PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, image, audio file, HTML page, or data file. - The owner hands over brand or reference material for `docs/design/reference/` or a spec. - The product being built must accept and parse user-uploaded documents (then markitdown, or its Python API, becomes part of the product, not just a build-time helper). ## Install and invoke (from the living source) Python with pip is the prerequisite (minimum version per the README); Node stays Groundwork's only always-on requirement, so this is opt-in, installed only when you actually convert something. Take the exact syntax from the markitdown README (linked above) at the moment of use: the install command with optional per-format extras, the CLI, the `markitdo