everything-client

A modern JavaScript library for interacting with the Everything search engine, providing a powerful cross-platform interface to search files on Windows systems.

Overview

Everything is a powerful and lightweight file search engine for Windows that instantly finds files and folders by name. This library provides a unified interface to interact with Everything through multiple methods:

Command line interface
IPC (Inter-Process Communication)
HTTP API (via Everything's built-in HTTP server)

Requirements

Windows operating system (target system)
Everything search engine installed on the target Windows system
Node.js >= 14.0.0 (for Node.js environment)
Everything HTTP server enabled (for HTTP/browser access)

Installation

# npm
$ npm install everything-client

# yarn
$ yarn add everything-client

# pnpm
$ pnpm add everything-client

Usage

Basic Usage

import { createClient } from "everything-client";

// The client factory automatically selects the best available adapter
const everything = createClient();

// Simple search - returns a promise with results
const results = await everything.search("*.pdf");
console.log(results);

// Advanced search with options
const advancedResults = await everything.search("document", {
  matchCase: true,
  regex: false,
  maxResults: 100,
  sortBy: "date",
  sortOrder: "desc",
});

Environment-Specific Configuration

// Node.js with specific adapter
import { createClient } from "everything-client";

const everything = createClient({
  adapter: "ipc", // Explicitly use IPC adapter
  // IPC-specific options
  timeout: 5000,
});

// Browser environment
import { createClient } from "everything-client";

const everything = createClient({
  adapter: "http", // Only HTTP adapter is available in browsers
  serverUrl: "http://localhost:8080", // Optional - defaults to "http://localhost:8080"
  username: "admin", // HTTP authentication username
  password: "password", // HTTP authentication password
});

Adapters

The library provides three adapters to communicate with Everything:

CLI Adapter

Works in Node.js environments by using child processes to execute Everything commands. Suitable for simple integration scenarios.

import { createCLIAdapter } from "everything-client";

const adapter = createCLIAdapter({
  cliPath: "path/to/es.exe", // Optional - defaults to "es" in PATH
  timeout: 10000, // Optional - defaults to 10000ms
});

IPC Adapter

Windows-specific Node.js implementation with direct communication with Everything using Windows messages. This is the highest performance option for Node.js applications on Windows.

import { createIPCAdapter } from "everything-client";

const adapter = createIPCAdapter({
  timeout: 5000, // Optional - defaults to 5000ms
});

HTTP Adapter

Works in both Node.js and browser environments by communicating with Everything's built-in HTTP server using ofetch. This adapter is cross-platform and cross-environment compatible.

import { createHTTPAdapter } from "everything-client";

const adapter = createHTTPAdapter({
  serverUrl: "http://localhost:8080", // Optional - defaults to "http://localhost:8080"
  username: "admin", // Optional - for HTTP authentication
  password: "password", // Optional - for HTTP authentication
  timeout: 5000, // Optional - defaults to 5000ms
});

Features

🚀 Built with modern ESM and TypeScript
🔄 Uses ofetch for HTTP communication with better performance and robustness
🔌 Dynamically loads optional dependencies for better compatibility
📦 Optimized package structure with smaller installation size

API Reference

See the main project documentation for full API details.