Cross-Device Sync (`scrinium sync`)¶

Synchronize the knowledge base (data/) and workspaces (workspace/) between Scrinium instances on different devices. Everything is included: full text (paper.md, paper.pdf, images/, notes.md), metadata (meta.json), the tag vocabulary (tags.yaml), the index (index.db), and workspace definitions (papers.json).

scrinium export / scrinium import handle citation formats (BibTeX/RIS/Markdown/DOCX) and external imports (Endnote/Zotero) — they cannot sync the knowledge base itself.

Subcommands¶

Subcommand	Purpose
`scrinium sync push <target>`	Push `data/` + `workspace/` to the target
`scrinium sync pull <target>`	Pull from the target into the local instance
`scrinium sync status <target>`	Show what would change (dry-run, no changes made)
`scrinium sync export <file.tar.gz>`	Pack into an archive (offline / cloud-drive / USB transfer)
`scrinium sync import <file.tar.gz>`	Import from an archive

Target Formats¶

SSH: user@host:remote/path/to/scrinium (e.g. wm2:~/scrinium)
Local path: /path/to/other/scrinium (a second instance on the same machine or a shared drive)

Sync Semantics¶

Default --update (safe): copies only files that are newer on the source or missing on the target, and never deletes anything. No data loss.
--mirror: deletes target files that do not exist on the source. Runs a dry-run preview of the deletions first and requires --yes to confirm.
status: dry-run; lists the files that would change without executing.

Exclusions (never synced by default)¶

data/inbox* (staging areas)
*.log, scholaraio.log*, metrics.db, .coverage
__pycache__/, .DS_Store, trash/, topic_model/

index.db is optional to transfer (the target can rebuild it with scrinium index), but transferring it saves the rebuild.

Examples¶

# Push from laptop to cluster
scrinium sync push wm2:~/scrinium

# Pull from cluster
scrinium sync pull wm2:~/scrinium

# Preview changes first
scrinium sync status wm2:~/scrinium

# Offline transfer
scrinium sync export sync_backup.tar.gz
# after copying sync_backup.tar.gz to the other device:
scrinium sync import sync_backup.tar.gz

Notes¶

This is file-level sync: meta.json conflicts are resolved by file mtime (newer wins); there is no field-level merge.
When the same file is edited on both sides, the later write wins. If you need two-way editing, put data/ and workspace/ under git instead.

Cross-Device Sync (scrinium sync)¶