Read file

read

Group: Files and search
Turned on by: Its own switch on the Tools page of Conversation settings.
Approval: Not reviewed: runs without asking, within the limits on this page.
Profile key: tool.read.description

Reads a text file or an image into the conversation so the model can work with what is in it.

Text comes back as a range of lines. An image (PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP, recognised by its content, not its extension) is attached for the model to look at.

Limits

A text file must be UTF-8 and at most 2 MiB. One read returns at most 60 KiB of whole lines and says which line to continue from.
An image can be up to 32 MiB on this computer, or 5 MiB in a WSL or SSH workspace. It is shrunk to at most 2,000 pixels a side before the model sees it.

Good to know

Reading a file lets write and edit change it afterwards, even after Mework restarts.
You can change a recorded read call in the timeline and run it again with Rerun.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Details
`path` required Path	string	File to read, relative to the workspace.
`end_line` End line	integer	Last line to return, inclusive; must not be smaller than start_line. Without it a read returns 2,000 lines. Ignored for images.
`start_line` Start line	integer	First line to return, 1-based. Ignored for images. Default `1`