content_document_file

content_document_file(path, mime_type='auto')

Prepare a local text/data file for input to a chat.

Use this for plain text, Markdown, CSV, code, and other document files that aren’t PDFs (use content_pdf_file for those). Not all providers accept every document type – e.g. .docx/.xlsx only work with ChatOpenAI(), and Anthropic only accepts documents it can treat as plain text – so check the documentation for the provider you are using.

This embeds the file’s bytes in every request that includes it. For a large document, or one referenced across many turns, upload it once with chat.files.upload() instead and pass the resulting ContentUploaded – at the cost of working on fewer providers and tying the chat to the one that hosts the file.

Parameters

Name	Type	Description	Default
path	str | Path	A path to a local file.	required
mime_type	Literal['auto'] | str	The file’s MIME type. If "auto", it’s guessed from the file’s extension, falling back to "text/plain" for unrecognized extensions (e.g. most source code files).	'auto'

Returns

Name	Type	Description
	[](~chatlas.types.Content)	Content suitable for a Turn object.

Raises

Name	Type	Description
	FileNotFoundError	If the specified file does not exist.
	ValueError	If path points to a PDF file (use content_pdf_file() instead).