Case study
omni
Overview
Find files on Windows without the waiting. A Rust search engine with a clean GUI, glob, regex, filters, sorting, and a one-click jump into Explorer.
Problem
Windows Search is slow and skips plenty of locations, and it can't do glob or regex. Everything Search works but leaves a background daemon and a database running. I wanted on-demand search with flexible queries and instant results, and nothing running in the background.
Approach
I built a Tauri 2 app with a Rust engine that walks the drives when you ask, no indexing, no daemon, no database. rayon parallelizes the traversal. You can search by plain text, glob patterns, or regex, and results stream in breadth-first so the shallow files show up first.
Architecture
Rust backend (606 lines) handles all search logic: scope resolution (global/drive/folder), parallel BFS with walkdir + rayon, query matching via a Matcher enum (Substring/GlobPattern/Regex), and smart skip lists (WinSxS, AppData, node_modules, etc.). Directory caps (20k/50k) prevent runaway traversal. Svelte 5 frontend uses runes ($state, $derived, $effect) for reactive rendering with two view modes (list/tiles).
Challenges
It's Windows-only by design (it reveals files through explorer /select). No indexing means big drives take longer, so I capped directory and result counts. Symlink loops are handled with canonicalize plus a shared HashSet. User exclude patterns are compiled on the backend, and reveal/open commands are guarded against directory traversal.
Results
A desktop search tool under 5 MB that covers every drive with glob/regex, type and date filters, sorting, match highlighting, recent searches, and instant reveal, no daemon, no indexing, no database.
