Luis M. Gallardo D., a developer based in Alicante, Spain, has released AnkiFlashcards — an open-source KOReader plugin that chains multiple AI API calls to generate fully-formed Anki flashcards directly from e-reader highlights. The plugin fills a practical gap in the existing KOReader ecosystem: ai-dictionary-koreader provided AI-powered lookups but did not produce Anki cards, while anki.koplugin exported cards using KOReader's built-in dictionary without any AI-generated context. Gallardo's solution combines both, triggering a complete pipeline — canonical form normalization, context-aware definition, IPA pronunciation, synonyms, a cloze sentence, and an anime-style illustration — from a single tap on a highlighted phrase.
The plugin's default AI backend is Qwen via Alibaba Cloud's DashScope API, with Qwen-plus selected as the baseline model over more recognizable alternatives. Google <a href="/news/2026-03-14-andrej-karpathy-scores-ai-exposure-of-342-us-occupations-using-gemini-flash-llm">Gemini Flash</a> is supported as a full alternative, and ElevenLabs TTS integration is available optionally for pronunciation audio. Gallardo pegs the all-in cost at roughly $0.03 per card, with image generation as the dominant expense. Images are generated asynchronously so the card appears immediately while the illustration loads in the background. Cards are stored locally on-device and can be bulk-synced to Anki desktop via AnkiConnect over Wi-Fi, or batch-imported from all highlights in a book at once.
The plugin runs an agentic workflow on <a href="/news/2026-03-14-opentoys-open-source-ai-toy-platform-esp32-voice-cloning">constrained hardware</a> — a Kobo e-reader — with no dedicated cloud app or subscription required. Gallardo's API choices are worth noting for developers building similar pipelines: he explicitly documented that Qwen and Claude via OpenRouter did not work satisfactorily for an earlier plugin, yet when building from scratch he chose Qwen via DashScope directly as his default. OpenAI models are absent from the supported list entirely. For Gallardo at least, DashScope's unified surface for both text and image generation — and its cost at that $0.03-per-card ceiling — made it the practical choice over better-known providers. The plugin is open-sourced at github.com/lgallard/anki-flashcards-koreader and has been tested on Kobo Libra Colour and Kindle running KOReader.