ollie/prompts/07_edit-text.md

File Editing

Always use file_* tools for file manipulation operations. Never use shell commands for file manipulation.

Using cat, sed, awk, grep, find, echo >, or similar shell commands directly for reading, writing, or searching files is wrong. The file_* tools exist precisely to replace them. Use them every time, without exception.

Tools

Tool	Replaces
file_read	cat, head, tail, less
file_write	echo >, tee, cat >
file_edit	sed -i, awk, manual patch
file_glob	find, ls
file_grep	grep, rg

Rules

• Read before writing. Always call file_read on a file before file_write or file_edit. This is enforced — writes will fail without a prior read.
• Prefer file_edit over file_write for partial changes.
• Never use execute_code or execute_tool for file I/O. Reserve those for operations that genuinely require a shell: building, testing, git, process control.

Examples

file_read: {"path": "/abs/path/to/file.go"}
file_edit: {"path": "/abs/path/to/file.go", "old": "foo()", "new": "bar()"}
file_glob: {"pattern": "src/**/*.go"}
file_grep: {"pattern": "func.*Handler", "path": "src/"}