read-gedcom

name	read-gedcom
description	Use when the user asks to read, open, summarize, inspect, view, parse, or describe a GEDCOM file (`.ged` or `.gdz`), or asks "what's in this family tree", "show me this genealogy file", "list everyone in this GEDCOM", "show record @I1@", "what version is this GEDCOM", or wants a JSON dump of GEDCOM contents. Handles GEDCOM 5.5.1, 5.5.5, and FamilySearch GEDCOM 7.0+; preserves encoding, BOM, and extension tags.
version	0.1.0

read-gedcom

Overview

Parse a GEDCOM file and report on its contents. Three modes:

• Summary — version, encoding, originating software, declared extensions, and a per-record-type count. The default mode.
• List — enumerate all records of a given type (INDI, FAM, SOUR, …) one per line.
• Record — show one record by xref as a level-indented outline with pointer payloads annotated by the record they target.

Add --json to any mode for a structured dump.

When to use

• "What's in tree.ged?" → summary
• "List the people in this GEDCOM" → list INDI
• "Show me record @I42@" → record @I42@
• "Dump this file as JSON" → --json

Do not use when:

• The user wants to find records matching some criterion → use search-gedcom.
• The user wants to change the file → use update-gedcom.

How to invoke

This skill is a thin wrapper around the gedcom-read console script published by gedcom-lite.

The recommended invocation uses uvx, which installs the package into a cached ephemeral environment on first use — no global pip install required:

uvx --from gedcom-lite gedcom-read FILE [args]

To run unreleased changes from git instead of the PyPI release:

uvx --from "git+https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-lite" gedcom-read FILE [args]

If gedcom-lite is already installed system-wide (pip install gedcom-lite or uv tool install gedcom-lite), invoke gedcom-read directly.

Quick reference

gedcom-read FILE                       # summary (default)
gedcom-read FILE list TAG              # enumerate records of a type
gedcom-read FILE record XREF           # show one record, pointers resolved
gedcom-read FILE record XREF --depth N # limit nesting depth
gedcom-read FILE --json                # dump full document as JSON
gedcom-read - < FILE                   # read from stdin

TAG is INDI, FAM, SOUR, REPO, OBJE, SUBM, NOTE, SNOTE, etc. XREF is the cross-reference id including @…@, e.g. @I1@.

Examples

$ uvx --from gedcom-lite gedcom-read tree.ged
GEDCOM version: 7.0
Encoding: utf-8-sig (with BOM)
Line ending: LF
Records:
  FAM    47
  INDI   142
  …

$ uvx --from gedcom-lite gedcom-read tree.ged list INDI
@I1@  John /Smith/  (1 JAN 1900 – 5 MAR 1965)
@I2@  Jane /Smith/  (1902 – ?)

$ uvx --from gedcom-lite gedcom-read tree.ged record @I1@
@I1@ INDI
  NAME John /Smith/
  SEX M
  BIRT
    DATE 1 JAN 1900

$ uvx --from gedcom-lite gedcom-read tree.ged --json | jq '.records | length'
142

Output contract

• Human output is plain text: one record per line for list, indented tree for record.
• JSON output uses the canonical document shape: {level, tag, xref?, payload?, children?: [...]}. The full-document form also includes version, encoding, bom, line_terminator, declared_char, and warnings.
• Exit codes: 0 on success, 1 on missing record / parse error, 2 on bad CLI args.

Reference

For GEDCOM semantics see the docs at the repo root:

• docs/format.md — line grammar, levels, xrefs, CONT/CONC, encoding
• docs/tags.md — common tags by record type
• docs/versions.md — 5.5.1 vs 5.5.5 vs 7.0 differences