Database status and repair

Status

Show which files are missing (moved or deleted) and which are untagged:

tessera status
tessera status PATH    # limit to a subdirectory

Output includes:

  • Missing — files in the database whose path no longer exists on disk.
  • Untagged — files on disk that are not in the database.

Repair

The repair command finds files that have been moved (or renamed) and updates the database records to match their new location. It uses the platform file identity (inode + device on Unix) and, as a fallback, name + size matching.

# Preview what would change
tessera repair --dry-run

# Apply changes
tessera repair

# Limit to a subdirectory
tessera repair path/to/subdir

How matching works

  1. File identity (inode) — exact match regardless of path. Works for simple moves within the same filesystem.
  2. Name + size fallback — if the inode is unavailable or has changed (e.g. copy + delete across filesystems), tessera matches by filename and file size.

When multiple candidates match a file, repair reports a conflict and skips that record. Use tessera show to investigate and tessera mv / manual SQL to resolve.