tools

Local Tool Management

Manage local enrichment capabilities and AI providers on your device. Detect available tools like FFmpeg, ExifTool, and Microsoft Foundry Local, configure their settings, test them, and run enrichment tools against your files to extract metadata.

Why Local Tools?

Cloud providers like S3 don't analyze your files. Local tools let you extract rich metadata (video duration, dimensions, hashes) from any cloud storage.

Subcommands

tools list List available tools and status

Display all available tools on this device.

filefortress tools list

tools detect Auto-detect available tools

Scan your system for available tools. Detection checks each tool individually, shows per-tool status with version info, and provides install hints for missing tools.

filefortress tools detect

filefortress tools detect --force

For Foundry, detection first checks the CLI is installed, then checks whether the Foundry service is running. If the CLI is found but the service is not running, you'll see a hint to run foundry service start.

tools configure defaults | tools configure <tool> Configure global defaults or a specific tool

Use tools configure defaults ... for global enrichment defaults, and tools configure <tool> ... for per-tool settings like enable/disable, path management, and Foundry model selection.

filefortress tools configure ffmpeg --path "C:\ffmpeg\bin\ffprobe.exe"

filefortress tools configure ffmpeg --enable

filefortress tools configure defaults --hash-algorithms "SHA256,MD5"

filefortress tools configure defaults --max-download-size 10GB

filefortress tools configure ffmpeg --clear-path

filefortress tools configure foundry --model "Phi-4-trtrtx-gpu:1"

Foundry model note: --model updates the configured model name, but model availability depends on the running endpoint. Use the exact model ID reported by your endpoint to avoid runtime 400 errors in filefortress ai.

Quick model discovery flow: run foundry service status, then query your Foundry endpoint at /v1/models and copy the exact id value into --model.

tools test Test a tool

Verify that a tool works correctly.

filefortress tools test ffmpeg

filefortress tools test --all

filefortress tools test ffmpeg --file "video.mp4"

tools run MAIN COMMAND Run tools against files

Download files from remotes and process them with local tools to extract metadata.

filefortress tools run [options]

--remote

Filter by remote

--media-type

Filter by media type

--tools, -t

Specific tools to use

--dry-run

Preview without downloading

Cost Warning: Downloading from paid providers (S3, BackBlaze) incurs egress costs. Use --dry-run first.

Available Tools

FileHasher

Built-in

MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512 hashes for all files

BasicImageInfo

Built-in

Image width and height for JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, WebP, TIFF

MimeTypeDetector

Built-in

MIME type detection via magic numbers for all files

FFmpeg

External

Duration, dimensions, codec, bitrate for MP4, MKV, AVI, MOV, MP3, FLAC, WAV

ExifTool

External

EXIF, IPTC, XMP, camera settings, GPS for JPEG, PNG, TIFF, RAW, PDF

Microsoft Foundry Local

AI Provider

Detects Microsoft Foundry Local on your device and configures it as the AI search provider. Not an enrichment tool — enables the filefortress ai command for natural language search. Use the exact model ID reported by your endpoint when setting --model. Windows only — install via winget install Microsoft.FoundryLocal.

AI Provider Setup (Foundry)

The tools command manages AI provider detection and configuration. Microsoft Foundry Local is the default AI provider — it runs language models directly on your machine so AI search queries never leave your device. You must set up Foundry before filefortress ai will work.

Install & Detect

Install Microsoft Foundry Local (Windows only), start the service, then tell FileFortress to find it:

# Install Foundry Local

winget install Microsoft.FoundryLocal

# Start the Foundry service

foundry service start

# Detect tools (re-run after installing)

filefortress tools detect --force

Detection checks both that the Foundry CLI is installed and that its service is running. If the service isn't running, detection will tell you.

Enable & Configure

Enable Foundry as your AI provider. This auto-detects the endpoint, creates the provider config, and sets it as active:

filefortress tools configure foundry --enable

# Or with a specific model ID from /v1/models:

filefortress tools configure foundry --enable --model "Phi-4-trtrtx-gpu:1"

If you configure --model phi-4 but your endpoint only exposes Phi-4-trtrtx-gpu:1, AI requests can fail with 400: (empty response body).

Verify

Test that AI search works with a dry-run query:

filefortress ai "find images" --dry-run

If you see interpreted filters, your setup is complete.

Foundry is not an enrichment tool — it doesn't process files. It provides the AI backend that powers filefortress ai natural language search. Other enrichment tools (FFmpeg, ExifTool) work independently.

Installed Foundry after initial setup? Run filefortress tools detect --force to re-detect it. FileFortress only scans for tools during detection — it won't find newly installed tools automatically.

Using a different AI provider? FileFortress supports Ollama, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, OpenRouter, and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. See the Local AI Setup Guide for configuration details.

Common Use Cases

Get video duration from S3 files:

filefortress tools run --remote "My S3" --media-type video --tools FFmpeg

S3 doesn't provide duration - FFmpeg extracts it locally.

Calculate hashes for duplicate detection:

filefortress tools run --tools FileHasher

Process local storage (no download needed):

filefortress tools run --remote-type Local

Local files are processed directly - fast and free!

Preview before processing:

filefortress tools run --dry-run --remote "My S3"

Best Practices

Run tools detect after installing new tools

Use --dry-run before processing large batches

Start with --remote-type Local for free processing

Use --media-type to target specific files

Related Commands

ai

Natural language search powered by Foundry

remotes enrich

Get metadata from cloud APIs (no download)

search

Search using extracted metadata

find

Advanced queries with metadata filters

Local Tools Guide

For a comprehensive guide on enrichment tools including setup instructions, cost considerations, and practical examples, see the Local Tools Guide.

Local AI Setup Guide

For a complete guide to configuring local AI providers including Foundry, Ollama, and cloud providers, see the Local AI Setup Guide. For real-world Foundry model mismatch lessons, read From 400 Errors to Reliable Results.