---

name: cli-scans description: "Scan files, directories, or stdin for PII with the Presidio CLI." disable-model-invocation: true metadata: disco-role: operating license: MIT

cli-scans

Use this sub-skill when you need the presidio command to scan files, directory trees, or stdin for PII findings.

Use this for

• recursive file or directory scans
• stdin scans with -
• YAML configuration files and inline YAML config data
• ignore and allow lists
• score thresholds and warning suppression
• output formats for local terminals and CI
• locale-sensitive output behavior

Route elsewhere when you need

• custom recognizers, NLP engines, or entity catalogs: ../analyze-text/SKILL.md
• anonymizing or deanonymizing detected spans: ../anonymize-text/SKILL.md
• service deployment, Docker, or HTTP runtime guidance: ../../references/service-and-rest-api.md

Start here

• references/cli-reference.md for command syntax, formats, and scan behavior
• references/configuration.md for PresidioCLIConfig, config precedence, and YAML fields
• references/troubleshooting.md for common failures and recovery steps
• scripts/presidio_cli_smoke.sh for a safe help check and tiny scan smoke test
• scripts/sample_presidiocli.yaml for a portable config template

Operational notes

• Console entry point: presidio
• Config loading order: --config-data, --config-file, current .presidiocli, then the bundled default config
• --threshold overrides the loaded config for one run
• Ignore patterns use pathspec in gitwildmatch mode
• --format auto prefers GitHub annotations in GitHub Actions, colored output in a TTY, and standard output otherwise
• Use github format in CI and parsable format for line-oriented machine parsing

Troubleshooting focus

If a scan fails or behaves unexpectedly, check references/troubleshooting.md first. It covers invalid YAML, unknown entity names, missing spaCy model issues, ignore-pattern surprises, threshold confusion, stdin versus file behavior, output-format expectations, and the current exit-code caveat.