JSONL output

videre scan can write one JSON object per line instead of a database. It is a way to get scan results into other tools without touching SQLite.

videre scan ~/Photos --output              # writes ~/.videre/hashes.jsonl
videre scan ~/Photos --output out.jsonl    # writes a specific file

--output and --db are mutually exclusive: one scan writes one destination.

The format

One JSON object per line, appended:

{"path":"/Photos/IMG_0042.jpg","hash":"5c5254e2...","size_bytes":4823921,"created_at":"2021-06-14T09:12:33","modified_at":"2021-06-14T09:12:33","ext":"jpg","mime":"image/jpeg","exif_date":"2021-06-14T09:12:33","gps_lat":52.5163,"gps_lon":13.3777,"width":4032,"height":3024}

The fields match the database columns of the same names. Absent values, such as EXIF on a PNG, are null or omitted.

Appended, not replaced. Scanning twice to the same file gives two entries per path. That suits a log, and it means you should not treat the file as a current snapshot without deduplicating it yourself.

Working with it

# every HEIC file
jq 'select(.ext == "heic")' ~/.videre/hashes.jsonl

# duplicate hashes
jq -r '.hash' hashes.jsonl | sort | uniq -d

# total size in GB
jq -s 'map(.size_bytes) | add / 1073741824' hashes.jsonl

# photos with GPS, as CSV
jq -r 'select(.gps_lat) | [.path, .gps_lat, .gps_lon] | @csv' hashes.jsonl

# largest ten
jq -s 'sort_by(-.size_bytes) | .[:10] | .[] | "\(.size_bytes)\t\(.path)"' -r hashes.jsonl

Because it is line-delimited, it also streams:

videre scan ~/Photos --output /dev/stdout --silent | jq -c 'select(.width > 4000)'

What you give up

JSONL is scan output only. Nothing else reads it:

Command	Works from JSONL?
`dedupe`, `report`, `prune`, `stats`, `locations`	No, they need the database
`embed`, `faces`, `classify`, `search`	No
`scan --retry-incomplete`	No, it needs a database to consult

There is also no perceptual fingerprint, no faces, no embeddings, and no resumability. A JSONL scan is a one-shot description of a folder.

When to use which

Use the database for anything you intend to do with videre itself. It is the default for good reason, and sqlite3 queries against it are usually easier than jq over JSONL. See the database for the schema and example queries.

Use JSONL when videre is one step in someone else’s pipeline: feeding an inventory into another tool, producing an audit log per run, or working on a system where you would rather not keep a database.

If you want structured output from other commands, most support --json, which is a single document rather than a stream:

videre dedupe --json
videre search "sunset" --json
videre stats --json
videre locations --geojson

Those are the better choice for scripting, since they describe results rather than raw scan rows.