Install

UBLX turns a directory into a flat, browsable catalog in the terminal. Indexing is powered by Nefaxer; deep metadata comes from ZahirScan when you enhance.

Development status

UBLX is in active development — expect breaking changes. See the UBLX repo for the latest.

Prerequisites

• A terminal with truecolor (24-bit) and image support
• A Nerd Font is strongly recommended

Optional tools (improve previews):

Tool	Role
tree	Directory preview in the Viewer
pdftoppm or mutool	PDF page raster preview
ffmpeg	Video frame preview
netcdf / libnetcdf	Linked by default; build without: cargo build --no-default-features

Install UBLX

Homebrew

brew tap Latka-Industries/ublx https://github.com/Latka-Industries/UBLX
brew install Latka-Industries/ublx/ublx

Cargo

cargo install ublx

Or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/Latka-Industries/UBLX.git
cd UBLX
cargo install --path .

First run

Open the TUI on a project directory:

ublx /path/to/your/project

UBLX indexes the tree, stores a per-root SQLite snapshot under your user cache (ubli/), and opens the catalog. By default you get path + filetype only — fast and lightweight. Run Enhance with ZahirScan (or enable full enhance in config) when you need rich previews and metadata.

Headless flags (--snapshot-only, --full-snapshot, --export): CLI.

What you get on day one

Step	Result
First ublx <dir>	Snapshot + TUI on Snapshot tab
Default config	Path catalog only (enable_enhance_all = false)
Optional enhance	Per-file or batch via ZahirScan
Later runs	Fast Delta tab vs previous snapshot

Next steps

• CLI — full ublx --help reference, headless flags, examples
• Configuration — enable_enhance_all, [[enhance_policy]], themes, cache paths
• TUI & modes — Snapshot, Lenses, Delta, panes, keybindings
• ZahirScan — metadata extraction and export
• Nefaxer — install, CLI, architecture, UBLX integration
• Guides — path-only vs full enhance, policies, large trees