Rules for agents

Convert each PDF once and save the result. Search the saved file instead of converting it again.
For a known term, start with a bounded search such as grep -n -i -C2 "term" file | head.
Use the query skill when you do not know the exact wording or a plain search returns too many matches.
Use pdf-to-markdown when headings, lists, and tables matter more than whitespace and column alignment.
Do not render PDF pages as images to extract selectable text. Use Vision for scans and image-only PDFs.

PDF to Text

Convert PDFs to plain text while preserving columns, indentation, and table alignment.

pdf-to-markdown — preserves headings, lists, tables, and reading order as Markdown.
query — searches a large converted file and returns only the most relevant passages.