Document Analyzer
Analyzes all documents in a specified folder and produces a structured summary.
When to Use
- User asks to "summarize the documents" or "what's in these files"
- User wants an overview of a document collection
- User needs to understand a corpus before diving deeper
Instructions
-
List the documents: Use
lsorfindto identify all readable files in the target folder (typicallydocs/for this course) -
Read each document: For each file, extract:
- Document type (memo, email thread, report, slack export, etc.)
- Author(s) and recipient(s) if applicable
- Date or time period covered
- Key topic or purpose (1-2 sentences)
- Notable quotes or data points
-
Identify patterns: Look for:
- Recurring themes across documents
- Key people who appear multiple times
- Timeline of events
- Tensions or conflicts
- Unanswered questions
-
Produce the summary:
Output Format
# Document Collection Summary
## Overview
[2-3 sentence high-level summary]
## Documents Analyzed
| File | Type | Date | Key Topic |
|------|------|------|-----------|
| ... | ... | ... | ... |
## Key Themes
1. [Theme 1]
2. [Theme 2]
## Key People
- **[Name]** - [Role/relevance]
## Timeline of Events
- [Date]: [Event]
## Open Questions
- [Question that documents raise but don't answer]
## Recommended Deep Dives
- [Specific document or topic worth examining more closely]
Tips
- For large document sets (10+ files), consider grouping by type or theme
- Pay attention to who's talking to whom—organizational dynamics matter
- Look for what's NOT said as much as what is
- Dates matter—sequence often reveals causation