Choose what is indexed

Every host has a scope: a short document that says which items are indexed and how deeply. The defaults are good for a personal folder. Change them when a folder is large, old, or full of files you never search.

The depths

depth	the index keeps	you can
exclude	nothing	nothing: the item does not exist for inseam
catalog	the address, size, dates, type and title	find it by name, read it
embed	all of that and the text	find it by what it says

The default for a folder is: everything from the last year at embed, everything older at catalog, and the usual noise at exclude.

The document

{
  "window": { "by": "mtime", "within": "1y", "outside": "catalog" },
  "rules": [
    { "when": { "path": { "glob": "**/node_modules/**" } }, "then": "exclude" },
    { "when": { "size": { "gt": 26214400 } }, "then": "catalog" },
    { "then": "embed" }
  ],
  "limits": { "maxObjectBytes": 268435456, "maxTextBytes": 2097152 }
}

• window: items changed within the duration get the depth the rules give them. Items outside the window get at most outside. Durations are 6m, 1y, 2w, 30d, 12h; m is 30 days and y is 365.
• rules: in order, first match wins. A rule’s when conditions are all required. The last rule has no when and sets the default.
• limits: items over maxObjectBytes are never read; text over maxTextBytes is cut.

Conditions

on	you can write
path	{"glob": "**/*.pdf"}, {"prefix": "Archive/"}, {"eq": "notes.md"}, {"in": ["a.md", "b.md"]}
ext	the same four, on the lowercased extension without the dot: {"in": ["log", "tmp"]}
mime	the same four, on the type: {"prefix": "image/"}
size	{"gt": 26214400}, {"lte": 1024} (bytes; gt, gte, lt, lte)
mtime	{"within": "90d"}, {"before": "2024-01-01T00:00:00Z"}, {"after": "…"}

Globs: * matches anything except /, ** matches across folders, ? one character, {a,b} either. A pattern without a / matches the file name only, so *.log matches a log anywhere. A pattern with a / matches the whole path within the host.

Examples

Index a photo library by name only, and skip the sidecar files:

{ "rules": [
  { "when": { "ext": { "in": ["xmp", "aae"] } }, "then": "exclude" },
  { "then": "catalog" } ] }

Index a project’s documents fully and nothing else:

{ "rules": [
  { "when": { "path": { "glob": "docs/**" } }, "then": "embed" },
  { "then": "exclude" } ] }

Index everything from the last 90 days, keep the rest by name:

{ "window": { "by": "mtime", "within": "90d", "outside": "catalog" }, "rules": [ { "then": "embed" } ] }

Change a scope

In the app, open the host and choose Scope. Or with the API:

curl -X PUT https://app.inseam.io/v1/hosts/h1a2b3c4d5e6/scope \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ias_…" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"rules": [{"then": "embed"}]}'

A new scope applies to new and changed items at once. Items already indexed deeper than the new scope allows are reduced on the host’s next walk; items that the new scope indexes deeper are re-read then. The exact grammar is in the scope reference.