head

Sample and display the first lines or bytes of files or streams.

Quick Start

1. Verify head is available: head --version or man head
2. Establish the command surface: man head or head --help
3. Start with a read-only probe: head -n 5 file.txt

Intent Router

Load only the reference file needed for the active request.

• references/install-and-setup.md — Installing head (GNU, BSD) on macOS, Linux, Windows
• references/cheatsheet.md — Common flags, line/byte counts, multiple files, quiet/verbose output
• references/advanced-usage.md — GNU vs BSD differences, large file handling, stream processing, performance
• references/troubleshooting.md — Encoding issues, binary files, empty output, permission errors