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Read Content of URL

The Read Content of URL tool lets your assistant fetch a web address and work with whatever is there — a web page, a plain-text or data file, or a downloadable document. It's one of the core base tools, so it's available to almost every agent.

What it does

When you give your assistant a link, it fetches the address and figures out what kind of content it found:

  • A web page → it pulls out the main content as clean, readable text (skipping menus, ads, and boilerplate).
  • A text or data file (plain text, Markdown, JSON, XML, and similar) → it hands you the content exactly as written, untouched.
  • A file you'd normally download (PDF, image, Word or Excel document, ZIP, and so on) → it saves the file straight into your chat as a document and starts extracting its text, so you can ask questions about it right away.

How to use it

Just share a link and tell your assistant what you want:

"Read https://example.com/blog/post and give me a 5-bullet summary."

"Fetch this release notes page and tell me what changed since version 2.0."

"Download the PDF at https://example.com/report.pdf and pull out the key figures."

You don't need to specify the tool or the content type — the assistant recognizes the link and handles the rest.

What happens with different kinds of content

The tool adapts to whatever it finds at the address:

You point it at… What you get
A web page (HTML) The main article/content as readable text, returned in the chat.
A plain-text, Markdown, JSON, or XML file The content returned exactly as-is — nothing reformatted or stripped.
A downloadable file (PDF, image, DOCX, XLSX, ZIP, …) The file saved into your chat as a document, with text extraction started automatically.

Why text files come back untouched

Returning text and data files verbatim means pages like llms.txt, raw Markdown, or API responses arrive intact — exactly as the source published them, with no web-page cleanup applied.

Saving a page into a folder

By default, web-page content is read straight into the conversation and files are saved to the top level of your chat. You can also ask for the result to be filed into a specific folder:

"Read https://example.com/guide and save it into the 'Research' folder."

When you save a web page into a folder, you get two documents: the original page and a cleaned-up, readable copy. For a text or downloadable file, the original is saved as-is.

Keeping or dropping images

When reading a web page, the assistant can keep image references in the extracted text or leave them out. Images are kept by default; if you only want the words, just say so:

"Read this page but skip the images — text only."

Good to know

  • Saving a file needs an active chat. Downloadable files are saved as documents in your current conversation. If the assistant is working outside of a chat, it can still read web pages and text, but it can't save a file.
  • Very large or slow downloads may time out. The tool fetches quickly; an extremely large file or a slow server may not finish in time.
  • Saved files are processed automatically. Once a document lands in your chat, text extraction runs in the background. See Supported Document Formats for what can be extracted.