My 10+ year old photo management system [1] relies on the file system and EXIF as the source of truth for my entire photo library.

It’s proven several times over that it’s the correct approach. Abstractions (formerly Google photos, currently Immich) should just be built on top - but these proprietary databases are only for convenience.

For work, I’m having the same experience as the author and everything is just markdown and csv files for Claude Code (for research and document writing).

[1] https://github.com/jmathai/elodie

I know some systems leverage the modern file meta data (extended attributes), but it's clearly not successful enough that folks can use them for an application like this.

Ostensibly, things like MacOS Spotlight can bring real utility and value to the file system, and extended attributes through the sidecar indexing, etc. But Spotlight is infamous for its unreliability.

The other issue with file systems is simply that the user (potentially) has "direct access" to them, in that they can readily move files in and up and around whimsically. The "structure" is laid bare for them to potentially interfere with, or, such as the case with the extended attributes, drag a file to a USB fob, and then copy it back -- inadvertently removing those attributes.

And thats how we end up with everything being stuffed into a SQLite DB.

I have your repo starred from a post/comment you made a few weeks ago but haven't had time to actually use/integrate it with my own stuff.

What are your thoughts on XMP sidecar files? I'm torn right now between digital negative + external metadata versus all-in-one image with mutable properties. Portability vs. Durability etc.

Thanks for sharing, I might have too much NIH syndrome to use it but I'd love to check it out.