Uploading contracts

Clment accepts most everyday contract formats. This page covers what works, what doesn’t, and the three ways to get a contract into Clment.

Supported formats

• PDF — including scanned PDFs (OCR runs automatically).
• Word — .docx (modern Word). For older .doc files, open in Word and save as .docx first.
• Plain text — .txt files. Useful for amendments or short side letters.

Not supported: images on their own (.png, .jpg), encrypted / password-protected PDFs, files larger than 100 MB.

If your file is bigger than 100 MB it’s usually because of embedded images. Re-export from Word as PDF with Standard quality or use Acrobat’s Reduce file size.

Three ways to upload

1. Drag and drop

The fastest path. From the Contracts page, drag a file anywhere onto the table — or click + New contract to pick from a file dialog. Clment shows the upload progress, ingests the file, and opens the new contract record.

Contracts are uploaded one at a time. For a back-catalogue migration, the practical workflow is to upload in quick succession from the same browser window — each upload starts processing in parallel so the wall-clock time scales reasonably well even for dozens of files. For very large migrations (hundreds of contracts, or anything coming off a system with an API), contact support — we can run a one-time bulk import for you.

2. Upload from URL (via Claude Desktop)

If you have your AI assistant connected (see Connecting Claude Desktop), you can ask it to ingest a public URL:

“Upload the latest version of the GitLab terms from gitlab.com/terms and start a review.”

Clment AI uses the upload_contract_from_url skill — it downloads the URL, ingests it as a new contract, and (if you asked) starts a review immediately. URLs must be publicly resolvable HTTPS; protected SharePoint / Drive links won’t work without an export token.

3. Upload local files via your AI assistant

You can also hand files straight to your connected assistant — for example, a few PDFs attached to the chat:

“Upload these contracts and start a review.”

Clment AI uses the request_contract_upload skill: it mints a one-time, short-lived upload link, and your assistant pushes the file bytes directly to Clment (up to 100 MB each).

One-time setup for sandboxed assistants (e.g. Claude in the browser, which runs its HTTP tools in a locked-down sandbox): the assistant can’t reach Clment until you allow it. If an upload fails with a “host not in allowlist” error, add your Clment region’s API host — the host shown in that error, for example api-au.clment.com — to the client’s allowed-domains / network setting, then ask it to try again. Assistants whose HTTP tools aren’t sandboxed don’t need this step — but many are (Claude’s agent sandbox included), so if you see the error, just add the host.

What happens after upload

1. Text extraction — Clment pulls the text layer from the PDF / Word file. Scanned PDFs go through OCR (≈10–20 seconds extra per scanned page).
2. CLM number — every contract gets a stable identifier like CLM-128, allocated atomically so two simultaneous uploads can never collide.
3. Initial classification — Clment AI suggests a contract type (NDA, MSA, SoW, etc.) and pulls out the parties, signing date, term, and renewal trigger. You can correct any of these inline.
4. Indexing — the contract is embedded and added to your portfolio search index so you can ask cross-contract questions like “which of our vendor agreements have unlimited liability?”

If extraction fails (corrupt file, exotic Word features, encrypted PDF), you’ll see a clear error on the contract page with a Re-upload button.

See also

• Reviewing contracts
• Connecting Claude Desktop