Day 12 of 28 · OpenClaw Challenge
Reading Documents & Files
⏱ 6 min
📊 Beginner
Your agent can browse the internet. But what about the documents sitting on your computer? The PDFs, spreadsheets, meeting notes, and reports you deal with every day?
Today your agent learns to read your files.
What your agent can read
OpenClaw's file tool handles the formats you actually use:
PDFs — contracts, reports, research papers, invoices
Spreadsheets — Excel, CSV, Google Sheets exports
Documents — Word docs, text files, markdown notes
Images — screenshots, diagrams, photos (it can describe what it sees)
You don't need to convert anything. Just point the agent at a file and ask your question.
Knowledge Check
Which file types can OpenClaw read?
A
PDFs, spreadsheets, documents, and even images
OpenClaw handles the file types you use daily — PDFs, spreadsheets, Word docs, text files, and images. No conversion needed.
Let's see this in action with a real scenario:
I just got a 40-page contract from a vendor. Can you summarize the key terms?
Here's your summary of the CloudHost Services Agreement:
💰 **Pricing**: $2,400/month for 3 servers, billed annually ($28,800/year)
📅 **Term**: 24 months, auto-renews unless cancelled 90 days before
⚠️ **Unusual clauses**:
— They can increase pricing up to 15% at renewal with only 30 days notice
— Data deletion takes up to 180 days after termination (industry standard is 30)
— Non-compete clause prevents using similar services for 6 months after cancellation
✅ **Standard clauses**: SLA of 99.9% uptime, 24/7 support, standard liability limits
🚩 **My recommendation**: Negotiate the price increase cap, data deletion timeline, and remove the non-compete. Those three clauses are unfavorable.
Draft a response flagging those three issues.
Draft ready ✓
I've written a professional but firm email pointing out the three concerns, with suggested alternative language for each clause. Saved to your Drafts. Want to review?
↻ Replay conversation
Knowledge Check
What did the agent flag as unusual in the contract?
A
The monthly price was too high
B
Aggressive price increase terms, slow data deletion, and a non-compete clause
C
The SLA was below industry standard
D
The contract was too short
The agent didn't just summarize — it analyzed. It spotted three clauses that were unfavorable compared to industry standards and flagged them with specific recommendations. That's the difference between reading and understanding.
Beyond reading — acting on what it finds
The real power isn't just reading files. It's what the agent does with the information:
Read my meeting notes from yesterday's product sync and pull out all the action items.
Found 6 action items from yesterday's product sync:
1. ✅ Sarah — Update the roadmap by Friday
2. ✅ Marcus — Share the competitor analysis with the team
3. ✅ You — Review the Q2 budget proposal
4. ✅ Priya — Set up user testing sessions for next week
5. ✅ Jake — Fix the dashboard loading bug (P1)
6. ✅ You — Schedule a follow-up with the design team
Want me to send each person their action items and add yours to your task list?
Done ✓
📧 Action items sent to Sarah, Marcus, Priya, and Jake
📋 Your 2 items added to your task list
📅 Follow-up with design team scheduled for Thursday 10am
All tracked and assigned.
↻ Replay conversation
Knowledge Check
After reading the meeting notes, the agent took three additional actions. What were they?
A
It just listed the action items and stopped
B
It only sent one group email
C
It asked the user to do each action manually
D
It emailed each person their items, added the user's tasks to their list, and scheduled a meeting
The agent combined file reading (extracting action items) with email (notifying team members), task management (adding personal items), and calendar (scheduling the follow-up). One instruction, multiple tools, complete execution.
Files + everything else
Your agent now has five connected tools: email, calendar, memory, web, and files. Each one makes the others more powerful.
When the agent reads a contract, it can email the highlights to your lawyer. When it scans meeting notes, it schedules the follow-ups. When it reads a report, it compares the data to what it found on the web.
This is the compounding effect of connected tools — and it only gets stronger from here.
Final Check
What makes the file tool more powerful when combined with email, calendar, and web?
C
It can act on what it reads — emailing summaries, scheduling follow-ups, and cross-referencing with live data
D
It supports more file formats
Reading a file is useful. But reading a file and then emailing the key points, scheduling the next step, and comparing against web data — that's transformative. The tools compound.
📄
Day 12 Complete
"Your agent reads your documents and acts on what it finds. No more manual extraction."
Tomorrow — Day 13
Multi-Step Tasks
Your agent can email, schedule, remember, browse, and read files. Now let's combine them.