Skills Productivity Text File Reader

Text File Reader

v20260413
file-reader
Reads and summarizes local text-based files such as Markdown, JSON, CSV, and source code, including quick type checks and smart tailing for big logs while skipping PDFs, images, and binaries.
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Overview

File Reader Toolbox

Use this skill when the user asks to read or summarize local text-based files. PDFs, Office documents, images, audio, and video are out of scope for this skill and should be handled by their dedicated skills/tools.

Quick Type Check

Use a type probe before reading:

file -b --mime-type "/path/to/file"

If the file is large, avoid dumping the whole content; extract a small, relevant portion and summarize.

Text-Based Files (use read_file)

Preferred for: .txt, .md, .json, .yaml/.yml, .csv/.tsv, .log, .sql, ini, toml, py, js, html, xml source code.

Steps:

  1. Use read_file to fetch content.
  2. Summarize key sections or show the relevant slice requested by the user.
  3. For JSON/YAML, list top-level keys and important fields.
  4. For CSV/TSV, show header + first few rows, then summarize columns.

Large Logs

If the file is huge, use a tail window:

tail -n 200 "/path/to/file.log"

Summarize the last errors/warnings and notable patterns.

Out of Scope

Do not handle the following in this skill (they are covered by other skills):

  • PDF
  • Office (docx/xlsx/pptx)
  • Images
  • Audio/Video

Safety and Behavior

  • Never execute untrusted files.
  • Prefer reading the smallest portion necessary.
  • If a tool is missing, explain the limitation and ask the user for an alternate format.
Info
Category Productivity
Name file-reader
Version v20260413
Size 1.66KB
Updated At 2026-04-14
Language