CLI

zahirscan --help

Template mining for text/logs and metadata extraction for media, documents, archives, and more

Usage: zahirscan [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]

Commands:
  init  Write default config to XDG config dir (~/.config/zahirscan/zahirscan.toml or equivalent)
  help  Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -i, --input <INPUT>...  Input file(s) to parse (can specify multiple)
  -o, --output <OUTPUT>   Output folder path (defaults to temp file if not specified). Creates filename.zahirscan.out in the folder for each input file
  -f, --full              Output mode: full metadata (for development/debugging). Default is templates-only mode (minimal JSON with templates & writing footprint)
  -d, --dev               Development mode: enables debug logging. Default is production mode (info level only). This disables progress bars if enabled
  -r, --redact            Redact file paths in output (show only filename as ***/filename.ext). Useful for privacy when sharing output JSON
  -n, --no-media          Skip media metadata extraction (audio, video, image). Faster processing when metadata is not needed
  -p, --progress          Show progress bars during processing. This is ignored if dev mode is enabled
  -h, --help              Print help
  -V, --version           Print version

Synopsis

Invocation	Behavior
zahirscan -i FILE ...	Run Phase 1 + Phase 2 on each input path
zahirscan init	Write embedded default config to the user config dir for editing
zahirscan --help / zahirscan help	Global or subcommand help

No subcommand is required for parsing — pass one or more -i paths and optional flags.

Commands

init

Writes the embedded default config.toml to the XDG config location so you can override settings without rebuilding.

Platform	Path
macOS / Linux	~/.config/zahirscan/zahirscan.toml or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/zahirscan/zahirscan.toml
Windows	%APPDATA%\zahirscan\zahirscan.toml

The CLI merges this file over the embedded default on each run. The library API does not read the file unless you load config yourself — see Configuration.

Options

Flag	Description
-i, --input <INPUT>...	Required for a parse run. One or more files or directories to process. Repeat -i or pass multiple paths after a single -i.
-o, --output <OUTPUT>	Directory for output files. Each input basename gets {name}.zahirscan.out inside this folder. If omitted, output goes to a temporary directory (see your system temp).
-f, --full	Full output mode: everything in templates-only mode plus file statistics, processing time, and before/after size comparison. Intended for development and debugging.
(default)	Templates-only mode: minimal JSON with templates, writing footprint (text/markdown/HTML), and per-format metadata where the pipeline produces it.
-d, --dev	Debug logging (trace/debug level). Disables progress bars even when -p is set.
-r, --redact	Replace directory prefixes in JSON paths with ***/filename.ext so shared artifacts do not leak full paths.
-n, --no-media	Skip image, video, and audio metadata probes (faster when you only need text/tabular/document formats).
-p, --progress	Show progress bars during processing. Ignored when -d / --dev is enabled.
-h, --help	Print help.
-V, --version	Print version.

Output modes

Mode	Flags	JSON contains
Templates (default)	(none)	Templates, writing footprint, and format metadata (see Supported formats and Metadata)
Full	-f / --full	Templates mode plus per-file stats, timing, and compressed vs raw size comparison

UBLX stores Zahir JSON from enhance runs in its catalog cache. For headless export from UBLX, see CLI and Headless snapshot + export.

Examples

Write config, then parse a log with an explicit output folder:

zahirscan init
zahirscan -i application.log -o ./zahir-out
# → ./zahir-out/application.log.zahirscan.out

Several inputs in one run:

zahirscan -i a.log -i b.json -i report.pdf -o ./batch-out

Full metadata for debugging a CSV:

zahirscan -i data.csv -f -o ./out

Share results without leaking home-directory paths:

zahirscan -i /home/user/project.log -r -o ./shared

Text and tabular only (skip ffprobe and image probes):

zahirscan -i mixed/ -n -o ./out

Verbose logging while iterating on a parser:

zahirscan -d -i sample.epub -f -o ./debug-out

Progress in production-style runs:

zahirscan -p -i large_tree/ -o ./out

Related

• Install — features, NetCDF, ffprobe
• Configuration — zahirscan.toml, filtering, adaptive batching
• Library — extract_zahir, sinks, streaming
• UBLX integration — batch vs on-demand enhance in the catalog