Querying Documents

The problem

You have dozens (or hundreds) of .it files and need to find specific information — overdue deadlines, contacts at a company, unsigned contracts, pending tasks.

The solution

IntentText has three query modes: single-file, multi-file, and natural language.

Single-file query

Query blocks inside one document:

# All deadlines
intenttext contract.it --query "type=deadline"

# Pending tasks by Ahmed
intenttext plan.it --query "type=step status=pending owner=Ahmed"

# Sorted, limited
intenttext contract.it --query "type=deadline sort:due:asc limit:5"

Multi-file query

Query across a directory:

# All contacts in active contracts
intenttext query ./contracts/active --type contact --format table

# Deadlines in April
intenttext query ./contracts --type deadline --content "April" --format json

# All approvals by Sarah
intenttext query ./contracts --type approve --by "Sarah Chen" --format table

# Metrics across all reports
intenttext query ./reports --type metric --format csv

Natural language query

Ask questions in English:

intenttext ask ./contracts "Which contracts expire in Q2?" --format text
intenttext ask ./hr "Who are the engineering team leads?" --format json
intenttext ask ./finance "What invoices are unpaid?" --format text

Output formats

Table (default)

intenttext query ./contracts --type deadline --format table

File                    Type      Content              Section    Due
contracts/acme.it       deadline  Payment due          Payment    2026-04-15
contracts/globaltech.it deadline  Contract renewal     Timeline   2027-03-31
contracts/nextgen.it    deadline  Q1 deliverables      Scope      2026-06-30

JSON

intenttext query ./contracts --type deadline --format json

[
  {
    "file": "contracts/acme.it",
    "type": "deadline",
    "content": "Payment due",
    "section": "Payment",
    "properties": { "due": "2026-04-15", "status": "pending" }
  }
]

CSV

intenttext query ./contracts --type deadline --format csv

file,type,content,section,due,status
contracts/acme.it,deadline,Payment due,Payment,2026-04-15,pending

Import directly into spreadsheets.

Filter flags

Flag	Description	Example
--type	Block type	--type deadline
--by	Author/attribution	--by "Sarah Chen"
--status	Status property	--status pending
--section	Section name	--section "Payment"
--content	Substring search	--content "overdue"

All flags are ANDed — --type deadline --status pending finds blocks that are both deadlines and pending.

Query operators (single-file)

Operator	Example
=	type=deadline
!=	status!=done
<, >	due<2026-04-01
<=, >=	confidence>=0.8
:contains	content:contains=urgent
:startsWith	content:startsWith=API
?	priority? (field exists)
sort:field:dir	sort:due:asc
limit:N	limit:10

Programmatic queries

import { parseIntentText, queryDocument } from "intenttext";

const doc = parseIntentText(source);
const deadlines = queryDocument(doc, {
  type: "deadline",
  properties: { status: "pending" },
  limit: 10,
});

Next steps

• Indexing Folders — speed up queries with indexes
• Multi-Folder Query — how cross-folder queries compose
• Contact Directory — build a contact directory from queries