Find Game Data Files

Added in version 2026.4.0.

Scans a folder for game data files and returns discovered paths with their collection statistics.

Command

# scan a folder tree, JSON output (default)
dnx dotnet-charon -- DATA FINDFILES \
  --folder "c:\my app\game-content"

# scan a folder tree, one path per line for shell piping
dnx dotnet-charon -- DATA FINDFILES \
  --folder "c:\my app\game-content" \
  --outputFormat list \
  --output out | xargs -I{} dnx dotnet-charon -- DATA EXAMINE --dataBase "{}"

Use this command to bootstrap work in an unfamiliar directory tree - “what game data lives here?” - before picking a file to pass to DATA EXAMINE, DATA LIST, or DATA SEARCH. Only files with recognized formatter extensions (.json, .bson, .msgpack, .xlsx, …) are considered, and each candidate is probed - reading only its first 4 KB for the Collections marker - before a full load, so the scan stays fast even on large directory trees full of unrelated files.

Parameters

--folder

Path to the folder to scan.

# local folder
--folder "c:\my app\game-content"
--folder /home/user/game-content
--recursive

When true (default), scans all sub-folders recursively.

# scan sub-folders too (default)
--recursive true

# scan only the top-level folder
--recursive false
--outputFormat

Output shape.

# JSON array of `{path, collections}` objects, matching the MCP `data_find_files` tool (default)
--outputFormat json

# one file path per line, for shell piping (e.g. `xargs`, `for` loops)
--outputFormat list
--output

Specifies where to write the output data.

# standard output (default)
--output out
--output con

# standard error
--output err

# null device
--output null

# absolute path (windows)
--output "c:\my app\found-files.json"

# absolute path (unix)
--output /user/data/found-files.json

# relative path (universal)
--output "./found-files.json"

# remote location (HTTP)
--output "http://example.com/found-files.json"

# remote location with authentication (FTP)
--output "ftp://user:password@example.com/found-files.json"
--credentials

Supplies authentication credentials for accessing discovered files if they’re located on a remote server. Credentials can also be provided via the CHARON_API_KEY environment variable.

This command supports universal parameters.

Output

--outputFormat json (default) writes an array of {path, collections} objects, where collections maps each schema name found in that file to its document count:

[
  {
    "path": "C:/my app/game-content/characters.json",
    "collections":
    {
      "Character": 128,
      "Item": 340
    }
  },
  {
    "path": "C:/my app/game-content/quests.xlsx",
    "collections":
    {
      "Quest": 56
    }
  }
]

--outputFormat list writes one absolute file path per line, with no other formatting - suitable for piping into xargs or a shell for loop:

C:/my app/game-content/characters.json
C:/my app/game-content/quests.xlsx

See also