You don't need pandas to see what's in a CSV — I built a zero-dep CLI for it

Someone drops a CSV export in your lap. Before you can do anything with it you need the basics: how many rows? what are the columns? which ones are mostly empty? what's the range on that amount field, and how many distinct status values are there? The reflex is to reach for pandas: import pandas as pd df = pd . read_csv ( " data.csv " ) df . shape ; df . dtypes ; df . isna (). mean (); df [ " amount " ]. describe (); df [ " status " ]. value_counts () That's a pip install pandas , a Python sessi