File indexing

File indexing keeps a local index of files on the endpoint so the DLP engine can quickly resolve the real file behind an upload or download and scan it. The QuilrAI agent builds the index from paths you configure, keeps it current with OS file events, and re-scans on a schedule.

Configure

Root paths

Ignore patterns

Scan interval

Scan

Parallel walker

Low OS priority

Safety limits

Watch

OS-native file events

300 ms batches

Incremental updates

Serve

Index lookup

Disk verification

DLP file resolution

QuilrAI

Settings

File indexing settings are managed with your QuilrAI representative and pushed to the agent. Each update triggers an immediate re-scan.

Setting	Description
Root paths	Directories to index. Supports macOS and Windows paths.
Ignore patterns	gitignore-style globs to exclude, for example **/node_modules/**, **/.git/**, *.tmp.
Scan interval	How often a full re-scan runs. Default: 60 minutes.
Max files	Ceiling on total indexed files. Safety limits apply as the index approaches it.

Network shares, Windows UNC paths, and macOS mounted disk images are excluded automatically.

When scans run

Trigger	When
Configuration update	Immediately on every settings change.
Agent start	On every start or restart of the agent.
Scheduled scan	Every scan interval (default 60 minutes), to catch changes the watcher missed.

Scans run at reduced OS priority (background priority on macOS, below-normal thread priority on Windows) so they do not slow the endpoint.

How it works

Stage	What happens
Mount policy	Each root path is checked first; network shares and disk images are skipped.
Full scan	A parallel directory walker traverses the root paths and writes results to a local index in batches.
Safety guards	Near the file ceiling, a soft limit reduces scan depth. After a scan, a hard limit prunes the deepest paths. A 30-minute timeout prevents data loss from a partial scan.
Real-time watcher	OS file events (FSEvents on macOS, ReadDirectoryChangesW on Windows) are collected in 300 ms windows and applied to the index in one atomic update. It starts automatically; no configuration is needed.
File search	For DLP, the agent looks up the filename in the index, then verifies size and modification time on disk. If the index has no match, it falls back to the platform's own search.

Monitor index health

Index state is reported back to QuilrAI and includes:

• Scan status: Idle, Running, or Failed, with the last run time and duration.
• File count: total indexed files and any paths pruned by safety limits.
• Watcher activity: create, modify, and delete event counts.
• Search hit rate: how often file resolution is served from the index versus falling back to disk.

To pause file indexing together with the agent's other services, use the agent kill switch.