Supported File Types | Captain Docs

Captain indexes the 184 file types below, sent through a direct upload, the dashboard, raw text, or a cloud storage connector. Each one is parsed, chunked, and embedded for search.

Category	Count	Extensions
Documents	3	`pdf`, `docx`, `doc`
Sheets	4	`xlsx`, `xls`, `csv`, `tsv`
Images	7	`png`, `jpg`, `jpeg`, `gif`, `bmp`, `tiff`, `webp`
Audio	7	`mp3`, `wav`, `m4a`, `ogg`, `flac`, `aac`, `wma`
Video	7	`mp4`, `mov`, `avi`, `mkv`, `webm`, `flv`, `wmv`
Text and code	156	`txt`, `md`, `json`, `yaml`, and 151 source, markup, and config extensions listed under Text and code

Documents

Extension	Type	What you get
`.pdf`	PDF	Text chunks labeled by layout role (`body`, `table`, `heading`, `figure`, and more), each with a page range. See Advanced Search & Relations.
`.docx`, `.doc`	Word	Text chunks with a page range (`metadata.pageStart`/`pageEnd`).

Sheets

Extension	Type	What you get
`.xlsx`, `.xls`	Excel	Structure-aware chunks with row/column provenance (`sheetName`, `rowStart`/`rowEnd`, `colStart`/`colEnd`, `columns`). See Multimodal Search.
`.csv`, `.tsv`	Tabular text	Same row/column provenance as Excel.

Text and code

Every extension in this section is read as plain text and split into text chunks with a page range. There is no syntax-aware parsing: a .py file and a .txt file go through the same lane. For .json files, pass a parsing_script to control chunking.

Family	Extensions
Plain text and data	`.txt`, `.md`, `.json`, `.yaml`, `.yml`
Python	`.py`, `.pyi`, `.pyw`, `.ipynb`
JavaScript and TypeScript	`.js`, `.mjs`, `.cjs`, `.jsx`, `.ts`, `.tsx`, `.mts`, `.cts`, `.coffee`
JVM	`.java`, `.kt`, `.kts`, `.scala`, `.sbt`, `.groovy`, `.gradle`, `.clj`, `.cljs`, `.edn`
C family	`.c`, `.h`, `.cpp`, `.cc`, `.cxx`, `.hpp`, `.hxx`, `.hh`, `.m`, `.mm`
.NET	`.cs`, `.csx`, `.fs`, `.fsx`, `.razor`, `.cshtml`
Other languages	`.go`, `.rs`, `.rb`, `.erb`, `.rake`, `.gemspec`, `.php`, `.phtml`, `.swift`, `.pl`, `.pm`, `.lua`, `.r`, `.rmd`, `.dart`, `.jl`, `.nim`, `.zig`, `.ex`, `.exs`, `.erl`, `.hrl`, `.hs`, `.elm`, `.ml`, `.mli`, `.s`, `.asm`, `.vbs`, `.applescript`
SQL	`.sql`, `.ddl`
Shell and scripts	`.sh`, `.bash`, `.zsh`, `.fish`, `.ksh`, `.csh`, `.tcsh`, `.ps1`, `.psm1`, `.psd1`, `.bat`, `.cmd`
Web, markup, and templates	`.html`, `.htm`, `.xhtml`, `.shtml`, `.css`, `.scss`, `.sass`, `.less`, `.styl`, `.vue`, `.svelte`, `.astro`, `.hbs`, `.ejs`, `.pug`, `.twig`, `.liquid`, `.njk`, `.mustache`
Markdown and docs	`.markdown`, `.mdown`, `.mdx`, `.rst`, `.adoc`, `.asciidoc`, `.org`, `.tex`, `.bib`, `.textile`, `.text`, `.diff`, `.patch`
Config and infra	`.toml`, `.ini`, `.cfg`, `.conf`, `.properties`, `.lock`, `.tf`, `.tfvars`, `.hcl`, `.nix`, `.cmake`, `.mk`, `.bzl`, `.bazel`, `.dockerfile`, `.log`
JSON variants and data text	`.json5`, `.jsonc`, `.jsonl`, `.ndjson`, `.geojson`, `.graphql`, `.gql`, `.proto`
XML family	`.xml`, `.xsl`, `.xslt`, `.xsd`, `.dtd`, `.rss`, `.atom`, `.xaml`, `.svg`, `.drawio`, `.csproj`, `.sln`

Not indexed, by design: compiled or binary variants (.pyc, .pyo, .class, .o, .so, .dll, .wasm, .jar, .svgz), .plist (often binary), and secret-bearing files (.env, .pem, .key, .crt).

Files with no extension arriving through a cloud storage connector are not rejected up front. The indexer sniffs their content type (HTTP content type plus magic bytes) and indexes them when the content is a supported type.

Images

Extension	Type	What you get
`.png`, `.jpg`, `.jpeg`, `.gif`, `.bmp`, `.tiff`, `.webp`	Raster images	One chunk per image, dual-embedded (visual and a VLM-generated text description), so a query matches what the image shows, not just its filename.

Images are supported up to 200 megapixels decoded, and can run through mask_pii for OCR-based redaction. See PII Masking.

Video

Extension	Type	What you get
`.mp4`, `.mov`, `.avi`, `.mkv`, `.webm`, `.flv`, `.wmv`	Video	Segmented into clips up to 120s, each dual-embedded with a spoken-word transcript and a VLM-generated visual description. Segment time range in `metadata.startSec`/`endSec`.

Audio

Extension	Type	What you get
`.mp3`, `.wav`, `.aac`, `.flac`, `.m4a`, `.ogg`, `.wma`	Audio	Segmented into clips up to 80s, each dual-embedded with an automatic-language transcript. Segment time range in `metadata.startSec`/`endSec`.

Video and audio detail, including transcript language control, lives on Multimodal Search.

Size limits by type

Each type has its own per-file and per-request ceiling, and the ceiling also depends on how the file reaches Captain (dashboard, API, or a connector). See File Size Limits for the full breakdown.