read-large-md

## Reading Large Markdown Files with Embedded Images Markdown files exported from Google Docs or similar tools often contain base64-encoded inline images (``) on single very long lines. These make the file hundreds of KB or millions of tokens, causing the Read tool to fail with "exceeds maximum allowed size" or "exceeds maximum allowed tokens." ### Technique Use **Grep** to extract only the text lines, filtering out image data: ``` Grep pattern="^[^!]" path="<file>" output_mode="content" head_limit=200 ``` This matches all lines that do NOT start with `!` (markdown image syntax), skipping the `` lines. ### Paginating through results Use `offset` and `head_limit` to read in chunks: ``` Grep pattern="^[^!]" path="<file>" output_mode="content" offset=0 head_limit=200 Grep pattern="^[^!]" path="<file>" output_mode="content" offset=200 head_limit=200 ``` ### Finding specific sections Search directly for section headers or keywords: ``` Grep pattern="## Theory of Change" path="<file>" output_mode="content" -A=30 ``` ### When to use this - Read tool fails on a `.md` file due to size - The file is known to contain embedded images (e.g., Google Docs export) - You need the text content but not the images