Sidecars and run stats

carry_sidecars: true (--carry-sidecars) transfers the sidecars beside each exported source image with it, in the same mode (copy or move), so a moved keep set does not leave its captions orphaned in the source folder. Under symlink the sidecars are copied, not linked: argus-lens and other tools write captions beside the exported image, and through a link that write would land in your source library. Each of these that exists is carried, named after the destination file (so a flattened, de-collided img-1a2b3c4d.png gets img-1a2b3c4d.txt):

Sidecars are carried only for images whose transfer succeeded, and an existing destination sidecar is replaced, as an existing destination image is. A sidecar that fails to transfer does not undo its image: it is logged and counted in ExportResult.sidecars_failed; sidecars_carried counts the ones that landed. Two images that share a stem in one folder (a.jpg, a.png) share a.txt, and both get it in every mode. Under move it is copied to each image but the last, which takes the original; if any of them fails to transfer, the original stays in the source folder. The export's own files keep their names: with sidecars carried, an image at the destination root with the stem run_stats, manifest or curation_report gets a hash suffix, even with preserve_structure, so its .json cannot be overwritten by run_stats.json.

With XMP

With write_xmp as well, sidecars are carried first and curator's data is then merged (XMP sidecars) onto the carried photo.jpg.xmp (or, when only a Lightroom photo.xmp was carried, onto a photo.jpg.xmp seeded from it). Under move that leaves one merged sidecar at the destination and nothing behind in the source folder. Under symlink the merge lands on the carried copy, so the source's sidecar is never changed. argus-forge reads captions from beside the manifest's abs_path, which under move is the destination, so a moved export with carry_sidecars keeps its captions in reach.

Run stats

run_stats (--run-stats FILE on the CLI) is opaque JSON from the client, for example the cull session that produced the keep set. It is written pretty-printed to <dest>/run_stats.json, beside the manifest, whenever the export produced a destination folder: at least one file was transferred, or write_manifest is on. ExportResult.run_stats_path names the file, or is null when nothing was written. The serialised JSON is capped at 5 MB; a larger body is refused with 422.

Move exports and the scan cache

A server mode: "move" export also drops the moved images from the cached scan, as POST /scan/{id}/delete does: their sources are gone, so the rows would only point thumbnails at missing files. Only rows whose transfer succeeded are dropped, and near-duplicate groups and identities are recounted. An export that fails after files moved still drops their rows, and its error says how many left the source. A move export of the scan that is still running is refused with 409, since that scan's next save would put the rows back. GET /health says export_sidecars: true on a server with all of this.