# Tools

Tools are standalone utilities for working with EDI. They are not tied to any partner or flow, so you can use them on their own whenever you need them. The EDI Translator and EDI Inspector below run in the browser without an account. The tools index at `/tools` also links the tedi CLI, the MCP server and the tediparse Ruby library, which have their own documentation.

## EDI Translator

The EDI Translator converts an X12 EDI document to JSON so you can see how Tediware reads it. It is handy for checking a partner's document without setting up a partner or flow first.

1. Open the [EDI Translator](/tools/translator)
2. Add your EDI in one of three ways: paste it into the Source panel, drag a file onto it, or click **Upload**
3. Click **Translate**
4. The JSON appears in the panel beside the source

The JSON panel shows the first transaction set by default, which is the shape your systems receive: processing delivers one result per transaction set, so the envelope around it never reaches you. Switch to **Full** to see the whole interchange.

The translation runs the same EDI-to-JSON conversion that inbound flows use, so the output matches what you would receive from a live flow processing the same document. See [JSON Format](/resources/docs/json-format) for what that output looks like.

## EDI Inspector

The [EDI Inspector](/tools/inspector) reads a document segment by segment and tells you what is wrong with it. Every segment and element is named, code values are spelled out, and anything that breaks the X12 standard is flagged on the line it appears on.

Paste, drag or upload a document and click **Inspect**. Findings appear in the status bar and against the source lines they refer to. **Copy for agent** puts a short summary on your clipboard for handing to a coding agent.

The Inspector checks the document against the X12 standard, not against a partner's implementation guide.

## tedi CLI

The [tedi CLI](/tools/cli) is the official command-line client. Use it to look up the X12 standard, scrub a document locally before sharing it, inspect EDI, and read and drive your organization's EDI traffic from your terminal: partners and the rest of your configuration (connections, envelopes, webhooks, flows, mappings, implementations, sources), submissions in both directions, and `tedi trace <guid>` for everything that happened to one document. `tedi mcp serve` puts the inspection, traffic and configuration tools in front of a coding agent.

## Help assistant

Signed in, the help panel's **Chat** tab answers questions about your own account as well as the documentation. It reads the same configuration and transaction history the `tedi` CLI and the MCP server read, as you, and it can change nothing. The conversation follows you from page to page, and each question carries the page it was asked from.

## Limits

Signing in raises the document size each tool accepts and how often you can call it. Each tool page states its own limits.