Scripting and AI Assistants

Everything Diffoniq shows on screen it can also deliver headless. Two commands cover the two halves of unattended work: /report answers “what is different?” as a file, /sync acts on the answer. Both report through an exit code, an output file and a log file — which is exactly what batch files, CI jobs, the Windows Task Scheduler and AI assistants can work with. Started through the console launcher DiffoniqC.exe, they also print their log lines and the shell waits for them like for any console tool.

The compare switches of a normal start work with both — the same engine runs underneath, including the hash cache and rename detection. Spell the command switch as /report or /sync, as shown on their pages.

The contract: exit code and JSON

Both commands follow the same scheme — a script can branch on the exit code alone:

When something has to act on the differences rather than glance at the count, ask for --format json. The document lists every compared item with a status, both sides with real numbers and ISO timestamps, and a summary block — JSON for scripts describes each key. Two rules matter for any consumer: a side that does not exist is null, and unverified and notCompared are states of their own — never treat them as identical (add --content when the decision must be final).

Working with an AI assistant

An AI coding assistant that can run commands — in a terminal, an IDE or a CI pipeline — needs no plugin to use Diffoniq: the two commands above are its interface. The reliable pattern is always the same: have the assistant write a JSON report, read the file, then act on it. For example:

Run
  "C:\Program Files\Diffoniq\DiffoniqC.exe" /report "D:\releases\v1" "D:\releases\v2" --out r.json --format json --content -s
then read r.json and summarize what changed. Treat "unverified"
entries as unresolved, not as identical.

The assistant gets the summary counts to decide whether anything happened, the entries to name it, and the exit code to branch on — instead of guessing from screenshots or parsing text layouts. A file comparison works the same way and yields a lines array. The pages linked above spell out every key and exit code; hand them to the assistant when it needs the details.

The console launcher DiffoniqC.exe

Diffoniq.exe is a windowed program, so a shell does not wait for it, does not see its exit code and shows none of its output. Next to it sits DiffoniqC.exe, a small console program for exactly this case: it starts the Diffoniq.exe in its own folder with the same arguments, waits for it, prints the log lines of /report and /sync, and ends with Diffoniq's exit code. Use it wherever a script calls Diffoniq:

"C:\Program Files\Diffoniq\DiffoniqC.exe" /report "D:\Backup" "\\nas\Backup" --out r.json --format json --reverify
echo %errorlevel%

• Call it by its full path. The installer does not add the program folder to PATH; in the portable package it sits beside Diffoniq.exe in the folder you extracted.
• Output: the lines are the same as in the log file — the log file is still written and stays the record. Redirect them like any console output (> run.txt); they are written as UTF-8.
• Ctrl+C stops the run. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Break or closing the console window ends Diffoniq too, and the exit code is then that of a cancelled console program (-1073741510, hex C000013A), not 0–3. A /sync --execute stops mid-way: files already copied stay, a file being copied at that moment can remain incomplete on the target — run the same sync again and it is copied anew. A /report writes no partial report.
• Without arguments or with two files to compare, DiffoniqC.exe opens the normal window and waits until it is closed.

Without the launcher

Calling Diffoniq.exe itself still works; the shell just has to be told to wait, or the exit code arrives as 0 before the report exists:

The output file is the safety net: the report and the log are written to a temporary name and renamed on completion — if the file named by --out or --log exists, it is complete. A consumer can never pick up a half-written report, and “wait until the file exists” is a correct pattern when the exit code is out of reach.

The Task Scheduler and CI runners wait on their own — the nightly sync and nightly report examples show complete schtasks lines.