Reading Uploaded Files

Why this skill exists

When a user uploads a file in claude.ai, Claude Desktop, or Cowork, the file is written to /mnt/user-data/uploads/<filename> and you are told the path in an <uploaded_files> block. The content is not in your context. You must go read it.

The naive thing — cat /mnt/user-data/uploads/whatever — is wrong for most files:

• On a PDF it prints binary garbage.
• On a 100MB CSV it floods your context with rows you will never use.
• On a DOCX it prints the raw ZIP bytes.
• On an image it does nothing useful at all.

This skill tells you the right first move for each type, and when to hand off to a deeper skill.