Well, you still need to track down the <filename> part and knowing what you want to search, so you need to examine the schema anyway.

However, if your all application state can be represented in a single json file of less than a dozen MB, yes, a database can be overkill.

> Well, you still need to track down the <filename> part and knowing what you want to search, so you need to examine the schema anyway.

Yes agreed, but it's usually a lot easier to find the filename part, especially if the application follows XDG. Sqlite databases are usually buried somewhere because they aren't expected to be looked at.