File

The File block is a built-in Sim block for working with files stored in the workspace, or fetched from external URLs. It handles reading, searching, writing, appending, compressing, decompressing, and sharing files as part of a workflow.

With the File block, you can:

Read and extract content: Load workspace file objects and extract their text content from selected files or one or more folders
Search workspace content: Match a regular expression, or an exact piece of text, across the workspace or selected folder scopes with bounded line-level results
Fetch from URLs: Retrieve and parse files from external URLs with custom headers
Write and append: Create new workspace files or append content to existing ones
Compress and decompress: Bundle files into a .zip archive or extract an archive into the workspace
Manage sharing: Enable or disable a public share link for a file, with public, password, email, or SSO access modes

In Sim, the File block allows your agents to search, read, and extract text from workspace files, fetch and parse files from URLs, write or append content to files, bundle files into or out of .zip archives, and control public sharing access for a file—all programmatically as steps in a workflow. Folder selection is optional and supports multiple folders. Pick them from the workspace, or switch the field to advanced mode and type comma-separated paths, including a value from an earlier block. When no folder is selected, search spans the workspace and file pickers are unscoped. Selected folders are expanded when the workflow runs, so newly added files are included automatically. This makes it possible to explore workspace content, move file content into and out of a workflow, package outputs for download or transfer, and expose files to external users through a managed share link.

Usage Instructions

Read workspace file objects, search indexed text across the workspace or selected folder scopes, extract the text content of files, fetch and parse files from URLs with optional headers, write new workspace files, append content to existing files, compress files into a .zip archive, extract a .zip archive into the workspace, or manage the public share link for a file.

Actions

File Read

Read workspace file objects from selected files, canonical workspace file IDs, or one or more workspace folders.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`fileId`	string	No	Canonical workspace file ID, or an array of canonical workspace file IDs.
`fileInput`	file	No	Selected workspace file object.
`folderPaths`	array	No	Folders whose files are included, as canonical percent-encoded paths, e.g. ["/Reports/Q3%20Results"]. Nested folders are included by default, and the folders are read at run time, so a file added later is picked up.
`includeSubfolders`	boolean	No	Whether nested folders are read too. Defaults to true; set false to take only the folders’ direct files.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`fileId`	string	No	Canonical workspace file ID, or an array of canonical workspace file IDs.
`fileInput`	file	No	Selected workspace file object, or an array of file objects.
`folderPaths`	array	No	Folders whose files are included, as canonical percent-encoded paths, e.g. ["/Reports/Q3%20Results"]. Nested folders are included by default, and the folders are read at run time, so a file added later is picked up.
`includeSubfolders`	boolean	No	Whether nested folders are read too. Defaults to true; set false to take only the folders’ direct files.
`offset`	number	No	First line to return, 1-based. Applied to each selected file separately, so a multi-file selection returns the same window of each. Absent starts at the first line.
`limit`	number	No	How many lines to return from the offset. Absent reads to the end. Use this to read part of a long file instead of all of it; the response reports the total line count alongside the window.

Parameter	Type	Description
`contents`	array	Array of file text contents, one entry per file in input order
`lineRanges`	array	Present when a line range was requested: one entry per file, in the same order, with offset, lineCount, and totalLines

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`query`	string	Yes	A regular expression matched against each line, 3-512 characters. Supports "." "*" "+" "?" "{n,m}" and their lazy forms, character classes such as "[a-z]" and "[^0-9]", the classes \d \w \s and \D \W \S, alternation "\|", groups "(...)" and "(?:...)", the anchors "^" and "$", and the word boundary \b. Lookahead, lookbehind, backreferences, named groups, inline flags such as "(?i)", \p{...} and POSIX "[[:alpha:]]" classes are not supported, and a pattern cannot span a line break. The pattern must contain at least 3 consecutive literal characters that every match will include — write "error \d+" rather than "\w+ \d+". Escape any metacharacter you mean literally. Matching is case-insensitive until the pattern contains an uppercase letter you are searching for; uppercase inside an escape or a character class, such as \D or [A-Z], does not make it case-sensitive. When the workflow builder sets Match to exact instead, the query is matched verbatim and no metacharacter needs escaping.
`mode`	string	No	How the query is read, chosen by the workflow builder: "regex" (default) as a regular expression, or "exact" as verbatim text.
`maxResults`	number	No	Hard result cap configured by the workflow builder (1-200, default 50).
`folderPaths`	array	No	Folders the search is confined to, as canonical percent-encoded paths, e.g. ["/memory/user-a"]. Absent searches the whole workspace. Scoping also narrows the reported index coverage, so "complete" describes the folders searched.
`includeSubfolders`	boolean	No	Whether the scope descends into nested folders. Defaults to true; set false to search only the folders’ direct files.

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