cargo run -p searchi-cli -- index --db ./searchi.db --root ./documents
cargo run -p searchi-cli -- search --db ./searchi.db "termination clause" --limit 10
cargo run -p searchi-cli -- search --db ./searchi.db "invoice" --json
cargo run -p searchi-cli -- search --db ./searchi.db "invoice" --extension pdf --min-size 1024 --json
cargo run -p searchi-cli -- index --db ./searchi.db --root ./documents --exclude private
cargo run -p searchi-cli -- stats --db ./searchi.db --json

The same arguments work on Linux and macOS. After building, invoke the searchi binary directly instead of cargo run -p searchi-cli --.

index creates the database if needed; its parent directory must already exist. search and stats require an existing database so a mistyped path does not silently create an empty index. Failures exit with a nonzero status and include the affected folder or database path. Result limits must be between 1 and 1000.

search --json emits an array of engine results, including the path, filename, snippet, ranking score, and match kind. An empty search emits []. stats --json emits an object with files and content_files. JSON is the scripting interface; the human-readable output may change as preview support develops.

The CLI searches filenames, bounded text, PDF text and DOCX paragraphs. Results include actual matching source locations when available and extraction errors for documents that could not be read. Semantic inference and media formats remain tracked in the roadmap; this interface does not fabricate embeddings.

Filters apply before result limits: --folder, --extension, --min-size, --max-size, --modified-after-ms, and --modified-before-ms. Dates are Unix milliseconds and inclusive. Repeated index --exclude NAME flags add directory names to the defaults (.git, node_modules, target).