Read a Structural Map of a Big File First, Not All 6,000 Lines

Reported ~80% fewer read tokens on a multi-file trace task in one benchmark (33k -> 6.6k), with per-file cuts of 71-93%; codebase- and task-dependent Advanced 4 min read

A coding agent's default Read is all-or-nothing: point it at a 6,000-line file to change one method and it pulls the whole thing into context โ€” then re-bills every line on every later turn. Give it a structural 'map' read that returns signatures and line ranges with bodies dropped, and let it range-read only the symbols it actually needs.

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