Blit

Blit delivers a high-performance, extensible file enumeration, planning, transfer, and orchestration platform for robust local and remote backups, file migration, and cross-platform syncing. With both CLI and daemon interfaces, async-aware planning, and strong Windows support, Blit is designed for speed and reliability—whether run interactively or as part of automated workflows.

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Features

• Modular Core Engine Async file enumeration, planner, and one unified transfer session in blit-core for maximum performance and extensibility.
• CLI and Daemon Binaries Minimal, ergonomic command-line interface; full daemon/server for automation and concurrent requests.
• Resumable Transfers With --resume, eligible partial files continue through block-level Blake3 comparison across local, push, pull, and remote-to-remote transfers. Retries re-run the selected destination comparison (so normal comparison skips files now complete); partial-file continuation requires --resume.
• Hybrid Transport TCP data plane by default, with an in-stream gRPC carrier for diagnostics or when direct TCP is unavailable.
• Platform Optimization Windows, Linux, and macOS optimized; per-filesystem capability detection (reflink, sparse, xattr) with platform-native fast-copy paths (clonefile, copy_file_range, CopyFileEx).
• gRPC API Robust proto definitions in crates/blit-core/proto/blit.proto enable remote orchestration and integrations.
• Security Boundaries Path containment, bounded wire records, and per-session data-plane tokens. The daemon has no built-in TLS or user authentication; operate it only on a trusted network or through an SSH tunnel or VPN.
• Admin Utilities Built into blit: daemon inspection and maintenance via mDNS discovery, module listing, remote ls/find/du/df/rm, shell completions, and performance profiling.
• Developer Experience Robust test suite, clear repo organization, and scripting-friendly JSON output across all tools.
• Extensive Documentation Agent collaboration (AGENTS.md), process docs, session logs (DEVLOG.md), and roadmap (TODO.md).

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Repository Structure

.
├── crates/        # Rust workspace
│   ├── blit-core/
│   ├── blit-cli/  # Produces `blit` (admin verbs included)
│   └── blit-daemon/
├── scripts/       # Helper scripts (Windows, etc.)
├── test/          # Test data/resources
├── docs/          # Workflow/process docs
├── AGENTS.md      # Agent and collaboration framework
├── DEVLOG.md      # Development log/context
├── TODO.md        # Feature roadmap/tasks
└── report.xsl     # Output/report formatting

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Installation

Prebuilt binaries of blit and blit-daemon (macOS binaries are Developer ID-signed and notarized; Windows binaries carry Authenticode signatures):

macOS — Homebrew

brew install roethlar/blit/blit-bin

Windows — winget

winget install Roethlar.Blit

Windows — Scoop

scoop bucket add blit https://github.com/roethlar/scoop-blit
scoop install blit

Arch Linux — AUR (blit-bin installs the release binaries; blit builds from source):

paru -S blit-bin   # or: yay -S blit-bin

Any platform — cargo (builds from source, needs a Rust toolchain):

cargo install blit-transfer   # installs the `blit` command
cargo install blit-daemon

Remote transfers require both peers to be the same build. Channel binaries (brew/scoop/AUR/releases) already match each other; cargo builds get a unique identity unless you pin one, e.g. for v0.1.3:

BLIT_GIT_SHA=fe6b279dfde0 cargo install blit-transfer blit-daemon

Any platform — GitHub Releases: download the archive for your platform plus its .sha256 from Releases, verify, and put the two binaries on PATH.

blit --version reports <version>+<git sha> so you can confirm exactly what you installed.

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Quick Start

Prerequisites

• The current stable Rust toolchain (the project does not declare an older minimum supported Rust version)
• No separate protoc install is required; the build uses a vendored compiler
• Windows, Linux, or macOS

Building & Testing

git clone https://github.com/roethlar/Blit.git
cd Blit
cargo build                # Compile the full workspace
cargo test                 # Run all tests

# Windows (with scripting/log capture)
scripts/windows/run-blit-tests.ps1

Usage

# Local mirror (copy + delete extraneous)
blit mirror ./source ./dest --yes

# Remote push to daemon
blit mirror ./local server:/module/ --yes

# Remote pull from daemon
blit mirror server:/module/ ./local --yes

# Remote-to-remote copy (daemon-to-daemon; destination daemon must allow delegation)
blit copy server-a:/module/data/ server-b:/module/data/

# Resume interrupted transfer (block-level comparison)
blit mirror ./source ./dest --resume

# Show progress
blit copy ./large_file.iso ./dest/ --progress

Running the Daemon

blit-daemon --config /etc/blit/config.toml

See docs/cli/blit-daemon.1.md and docs/DAEMON_CONFIG.md for configuration details.

Admin Utilities

# Discover daemons on the local network
blit scan

# List modules exported by a daemon
blit list-modules server

# Browse remote directories
blit ls server:/module/path

# Search for files on a remote daemon (glob pattern)
blit find server:/module/ --pattern "*.csv"

# Disk usage summary
blit du server:/module/path --json

# Filesystem statistics
blit df server:/module

# Remove remote files (with confirmation)
blit rm server:/module/path/old-data

# Show local performance history
blit profile

# Install shell-completion scripts (bash / zsh / fish / powershell / elvish)
blit completions shell bash > ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/blit
blit completions shell zsh  > "${fpath[1]}/_blit"
blit completions shell fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/blit.fish

blit completions remote <REMOTE> [--prefix <STR>] [--files] [--dirs] is the daemon-backed remote-path completion the generated shell scripts call internally — <REMOTE> is the target host (e.g. server:9031) and --prefix narrows the returned path set. You don't typically run it directly.