Tool · Hermes · Nous Research

read_file

hermes/read-fileRead · primarysourcechecked 2026-09-02
How this differs from most implementations
  • Staleness check before writeinvariantholdsvs fails in 6 of 8
  • Byte / char cap100k chars (not lines)vs 50 KB in 3 of 5
  • Whichever hits firstcharsvs lines or bytes in 4 of 5
  • Giant single linechar budget absorbs itvs per-line cap in 4 of 6

Derived by comparing every recorded value against the other implementations of the same capability. Differing is not a defect unless the row is marked an invariant.

Observed · Read

compare all →
Output shape
Dedicated read toolread_filesrc
Line numberingN|src
Output wrapperplainsrc
Limits
Default line cap2000src
Byte / char cap100k chars (not lines)src
Per-line cap
Whichever hits firstcharssrc
Pagination
Offset base1-indexedsrc
Announces truncationinvariantholdssrc
Returns next_offset.
Continuation hintnext_offsetsrc
Reports total lines?
Out-of-range offset?
Non-text
Binary content never enters context silentlyinvariant?
Binary files?
Imagesseparate vision_analyzesrc
PDFs?
Notebooks?
Giant single linechar budget absorbs itsrc
Errors
Missing path?
Path is a directory?
Empty file?
Non-vision model?
Correctness
Mixed line endings?
Re-read dedup(path,offset,limit)→mtime, 'File unchanged since last read'src
Staleness check before writeinvariantholdssrc
Compares mtime on write.
Line-number contamination guardwrite-side detector rejects N| contentsrc

Other tools in Hermes