# Quickstart

This is a ~60-second round-trip with **no cloud account and no setup**: snapshot a
directory, push it to a **local** store, pull it back somewhere else, and confirm
it is byte-for-byte identical. The only thing you need is the `snapdir` binary —
see [Install](install.md) if you don't have it yet.

A snapshot is identified by the BLAKE3 hash of its manifest, so identical content
always produces the same **snapshot ID** on any machine. Every object is re-hashed
and verified on fetch, so a successful pull is a proof of integrity.

## 1. Create a directory and read its ID

Make a directory with some content, then ask snapdir for its content-addressed ID.
Nothing is stored yet — `snapdir id` just hashes the directory:

```sh
mkdir -p demo && echo hello > demo/a.txt

snapdir id ./demo
```

The printed ID depends only on the content. Run `snapdir id ./demo` again (or on
another machine with the same files) and you get the exact same ID.

## 2. Push to a local store

A store is addressed by a URI of the form `protocol://location/path`. For a local
round-trip the protocol is `file://`, which is just a directory on disk. `push`
uploads the snapshot and prints its ID, so capture it in a variable:

```sh
id=$(snapdir push --store "file://$PWD/store" ./demo)

echo "$id"
```

That is the same ID `snapdir id` printed in step 1. Objects are stored at
content-addressed keys, so unchanged files are never uploaded twice.

## 3. Pull it back and verify

Pull the snapshot into a fresh directory. `pull` fetches every object from the
store, re-hashes it, and checks it out — failing loudly if anything does not match:

```sh
snapdir pull --store "file://$PWD/store" --id "$id" ./restored

snapdir id ./restored   # prints the same $id — byte-for-byte identical
```

If `snapdir id ./restored` prints the same ID, the restore is verified identical to
the original. You can also explicitly check a staged snapshot with
[`snapdir verify`](reference/snapdir-verify.md).

## Going further

Swap `file://$PWD/store` for an `s3://…`, `gs://…`, or `b2://…` URI and the exact
same `push`/`pull` commands publish to and restore from the cloud — no other
changes.

- [Snapshotting guide](guide/snapshotting.md) — how IDs and manifests work.
- [Command reference overview](reference/overview.md) — every subcommand.
- Command pages: [`snapdir id`](reference/snapdir-id.md),
  [`snapdir push`](reference/snapdir-push.md),
  [`snapdir pull`](reference/snapdir-pull.md).