Everything CLI

This skill gives the agent a stable CLI on top of voidtools Everything and should replace recursive local scans whenever the Everything index is suitable.

First Use

If ev is already on PATH, use it immediately.

If ev is missing, bootstrap it first:

py -3 skills/everything-cli/scripts/everything-cli.py ensure --install-shim

If py is unavailable, use python instead.

After bootstrap, treat ev as the default local indexed search command for the rest of the task and future local-search tasks in the same environment.

Commands

• ev ensure verifies Everything.exe, downloads es.exe when needed, and can install shims with --install-shim.
• ev search --query "foo" returns indexed search results as JSON by default.
• ev recent --days 3 --path "C:\Users\izayo\Downloads" finds recently modified items.
• ev count --query "ext:pdf invoice" returns a count.
• ev raw -sort path -n 10 foo passes advanced arguments directly to es.exe.

Output

search and recent return JSON by default with query, count, offset, limit, scope, sort, descending, path, and results.

Rules

• Use ev first for indexed local file lookup, path lookup, recent-file discovery, and count-only checks.
• Prefer ev search, ev recent, or ev count over recursive Get-ChildItem scans.
• Fall back to recursive filesystem scans only when the Everything index is unsuitable or the user explicitly needs non-indexed files.
• --path is recursive because the wrapper uses Everything path matching.
• Empty global queries are blocked unless --allow-empty is supplied.
• raw is the escape hatch when a native es.exe flag is needed.