shootsv0.5.0
Getting started

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Getting started

1. Install

shoots ships as a standalone binary — no Node.js runtime required on the target machine.

macOS / Linux

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stefanopascazi/shoots/main/install.sh | bash

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stefanopascazi/shoots/main/install.ps1 | iex

The installer:

  1. detects your OS/arch and picks the matching release asset,
  2. downloads it and verifies its SHA-256 against the release SHA256SUMS.txt,
  3. installs to ~/.shoots/bin (%USERPROFILE%\.shoots\bin on Windows),
  4. adds that directory to your PATH.

Installer variables

Variable Effect
SHOOTS_INSTALL_DIR Install somewhere other than ~/.shoots/bin
SHOOTS_REPO Point at a fork / mirror repository 
SHOOTS_INSTALL_DIR=/usr/local/bin \
  curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stefanopascazi/shoots/main/install.sh | bash

Both installers always fetch the latest release. To install a specific version, download that release's asset directly from GitHub.

Supported release targets: windows-x64, linux-x64, linux-arm64, darwin-arm64. Intel macOS (darwin-x64) is intentionally not built.

Building from source

See Development.

2. Provision the external dependencies

shoots does not bundle third-party binaries or ML models. They are downloaded at runtime into ~/.shoots, verified against pinned SHA-256 hashes, from a mirror on GitHub Releases.

shoots setup

This fetches, in order:

Dependency Why Used by
exiftool metadata read/write, RAW embedded-preview extraction exif, rename, cull (RAW), rate --write-xmp, embeddings, develop export
LibRaw (dcraw_emu) neutral, camera-independent RAW render develop export --baseline external
CLIP model (ONNX, int8) image embeddings, aesthetics, keywords rate, embeddings, develop export

setup is idempotent — already-installed, checksum-verified dependencies are left untouched, so it is safe to run from an installer or a CI image.

You can skip it: every command provisions lazily on first use. setup just moves that download to a predictable moment.

3. Verify the environment

shoots doctor
[✓] platform     win32/x64, node v22.11.0
[✓] shoots home  C:\Users\jane\.shoots (writable)
[✓] tar          bsdtar 3.7.2
[✓] perl         not required on Windows (exiftool is native)
[✓] tool mirror  https://github.com/stefanopascazi/shoots/releases/download/tools-v1
[✓] exiftool     13.59 (C:\Users\jane\.shoots\bin\exiftool\13.59\exiftool.exe)
[✓] libraw       C:\Users\jane\.shoots\bin\libraw\0.21.4\dcraw_emu.exe
[✓] inference model  vit-b32-int8-2 (C:\Users\jane\.shoots\models\clip\vit-b32-int8-2)
[✓] sharp        libvips 8.15.3

9 checks: 9 ok, 0 warnings, 0 failed

doctor exits 1 if any check fails; warnings (a dependency merely not provisioned yet) do not fail the command. Full details in doctor.

4. Your first import

Always start with --dry-run. It shows the exact plan without touching a byte.

shoots import E:/DCIM/100CANON --dest D:/Shoots/2026/smith-wedding --dry-run
copy  E:\DCIM\100CANON\IMG_0001.CR3  →  D:\Shoots\2026\smith-wedding\2026\2026-07-19\IMG_0001.CR3
copy  E:\DCIM\100CANON\IMG_0002.CR3  →  D:\Shoots\2026\smith-wedding\2026\2026-07-19\IMG_0002.CR3
...
(dry run) 482 files would be copied to D:\Shoots\2026\smith-wedding

Note two defaults:

  • Original filenames are kept. Renaming is opt-in (--rename for the default template, --pattern for your own). Your camera's IMG_0001 numbering is meaningful to you; shoots does not throw it away unless asked.
  • Files land in {year}/{year}-{month}-{day} subfolders — a Lightroom-style catalog layout. Use --flat to disable, or --dir for a custom layout.

Happy with the plan? Drop --dry-run:

shoots import E:/DCIM/100CANON --dest D:/Shoots/2026/smith-wedding
ok    E:\DCIM\100CANON\IMG_0001.CR3  →  D:\Shoots\2026\smith-wedding\2026\2026-07-19\IMG_0001.CR3  [sha256 verified]
...

482/482 files copied to D:\Shoots\2026\smith-wedding

Every copy is SHA-256 verified against its source. A mismatch fails loudly and deletes the corrupt copy — never the source.

5. Explore interactively

Run shoots with no arguments on a terminal:

  ███████╗██╗  ██╗ ██████╗  ██████╗ ████████╗███████╗
  ██╔════╝██║  ██║██╔═══██╗██╔═══██╗╚══██╔══╝██╔════╝
  ███████╗███████║██║   ██║██║   ██║   ██║   ███████╗
  ╚════██║██╔══██║██║   ██║██║   ██║   ██║   ╚════██║
  ███████║██║  ██║╚██████╔╝╚██████╔╝   ██║   ███████║
  ╚══════╝╚═╝  ╚═╝ ╚═════╝  ╚═════╝    ╚═╝   ╚══════╝
  ◉ v0.4.1 — batch automation for photographers

❯ /cull @raw/ --dest @rejects/ --review

Type / for the command palette, @ to autocomplete paths. See Interactive shell.

Where to go next

Edit this page on GitHub