Tome
Features

Bindery

Bindery is Tome's incoming-file pipeline. Drop EPUBs, CBZs, CBRs, or PDFs into the directory mounted at /bindery (or wherever TOME_INCOMING_DIR points) and Tome handles metadata extraction, cover fetch, duplicate detection, and library assignment. You decide whether ingestion is gated on a manual review or runs automatically on a timer.

Reading time —
Bindery review queue

Two modes

# docker-compose.yml — manual review (default)
services:
  tome:
    image: ghcr.io/bndct-devops/tome:latest
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
      - ./books:/books
      - ./bindery:/bindery   # ← drop files here
    # No TOME_AUTO_IMPORT — manual is the default

Manual review

Default behavior, recommended for any library you care about. Files arrive in /bindery, get parsed, and queue up in Admin → Unreviewed. An admin opens each entry, eyeballs the detected metadata, edits if necessary, and clicks Accept — only then does the book move into the canonical library folder and become visible to non-admin users.

  1. Copy files into /bindery (cp, rsync, smb, whatever).
  2. Tome detects them within a few seconds and parses metadata from the file + filename.
  3. They appear in Admin → Unreviewed with a counter badge in the sidebar.
  4. Open each, check the detected title / author / series / volume. Use Fetch metadata to populate description and cover.
  5. Click Accept to publish, or Reject to delete the file from /bindery.

Auto-import

Set TOME_AUTO_IMPORT=true and Tome scans /bindery on a schedule (default every 5 minutes). Detected files get accepted automatically — but they still land marked is_reviewed=false so they show up in the Unreviewed queue for sanity checking after the fact.

What Tome extracts on ingest

  • Title, author, publisher, language, year — from EPUB's OPF, CBZ's ComicInfo.xml, or PDF metadata when present.
  • Series + volume index — from filename patterns. See series detection rules.
  • Cover — embedded cover from the file. If missing, a placeholder is set and you can fetch a cover later.
  • Content hash — sha256 of the file bytes. Used for duplicate detection across re-uploads.
  • Book type — guessed from format and metadata (novel, manga, comic, etc.). Determines which auto-library it lands in.

Filename conventions Tome understands

The cleaner your filenames, the less hand-editing you do. Recommended patterns:

  • Standalone fiction: Title - Author (Year).epub
  • Series volume: Series Name v01.cbz or Series Name - Vol. 01.epub
  • Manga chapter: Series Name c042.cbz (Tome groups chapters separately from volumes)

Duplicate handling

On ingest, Tome compares the new file's content hash against every existing BookFile. Exact match → the new file is silently skipped (and removed from /bindery if auto-import). Near-duplicates (same series + volume, different format) are flagged in the Admin → Duplicates view; you can attach the new file to the existing book record or keep it as a separate entry.

Rejecting and cleaning up

Rejecting a book deletes the source file from /bindery. If you only want to keep the file out of the library but preserve it on disk, move it elsewhere instead of clicking Reject.

Once accepted, books live in TOME_LIBRARY_DIR under a series or author folder (see series organisation). The original drop in /bindery is removed.