digitization-tasks-helper

UC Davis Library — Digitization Services toolkit.

A single repo of small, composable scripts for the digitization workflow: capture hand-off, backup, AV digitization, course-video compression, and delivery to Special Collections.

Owned by the Digitization Services Specialist (John Pike). Used by John + 5 student assistants across the Mac Studio capture station, two M4 Mac minis, and laptops.

Install on a new machine

git clone https://github.com/jmpucd/session-workflow.git ~/code/digitization-tasks-helper
cd ~/code/digitization-tasks-helper
./install.sh

install.sh is idempotent — re-run after every git pull.

It will:

1. Install Homebrew dependencies from Brewfile (rsync, ffmpeg, exiftool, etc.).
2. Symlink bin/digi into /usr/local/bin (or ~/.local/bin on Apple Silicon).
3. Pin a stable machine name in etc/machine-name (gitignored; defaults to the Sharing-pane "Local hostname" — edit the file to pick a friendlier name) and create etc/machines/<name>.yaml if missing (copied from the template — edit it afterward to fill in this machine's paths; see etc/machines/README.md).

Usage

Everything is dispatched through a single digi command:

digi help                    # list available subcommands

# Capture One session workflow (Synology = queue, TB SSDs = local scratch).
digi park [<session>]        # capture station → Synology queue
digi presync                 # capture station only: background pre-stage of stable raw files (via launchd, see etc/launchd/)
digi queue                   # list what's parked + who has what checked out
digi checkout [<session>]    # pull a queued session to this Mac for editing
digi checkin                 # push edits back to Synology, release lock
digi complete [<session>]    # mark a parked session done (hides it from queue; not an archive)
digi status                  # what's on this mac, what's checked out elsewhere
digi log [-n 20]             # recent park / checkout / checkin / complete events
digi force-unlock <session>  # admin: clear a stale lock (logged with reason)

Each subcommand lives in bin/digi-<name> and can also be invoked directly.

Docs:

• docs/setup-and-training.md — installing digi on a Mac + onboarding a new student
• docs/capture-one-workflow.md — daily cheat sheet for the three main commands
• docs/SOP-capture-one-handoff.md — formal Standard Operating Procedure

Repo layout

bin/         Subcommand executables (digi-backup, digi-rip-dvd, ...)
lib/         Shared shell + Python helpers (logging, config, rsync wrappers)
etc/         Configuration
  machines/  Per-host config (paths, role, mount points)
  shared/    Settings that apply to every machine
inbox/       Scratch space for unstyled scripts John dumps mid-workflow.
             Curated into bin/ + lib/ later.
scripts/     Examples, one-shot maintenance scripts, references
docs/        Runbooks, troubleshooting notes

Working in the inbox

When you find yourself running an ad-hoc command repeatedly, drop it into inbox/ with a short note at the top. Don't worry about polish — the goal is to capture it before it's forgotten. We promote inbox scripts into proper bin/digi-* commands during cleanup passes.

inbox/
  2026-05-15-resize-tiff-batch.sh
  2026-05-15-NOTES.md          # what was I doing, what worked, what didn't

Machines, typically

role: in a machine's config is just a label for digi doctor to print — it doesn't restrict anything. What a machine can actually do comes from which paths are filled in (capture_root for park, local_working for checkout/checkin), and a machine can have both if that's how it's really used. The table below is what each machine happens to be set up for today, not a fixed category:

Role	Hostname (example)	What it does
capture	mac-studio-versa	Phase One iXG + Capture One, primary ingest — also edits locally (local_working set alongside capture_root)
edit	mac-mini-edit-1	post-processing, batch derivatives
edit	mac-mini-edit-2	post-processing, AV digitization
laptop	jmpike-mbp	admin, scripting, editing sessions
nas	synology	working storage, transfer hub
server	campus-centos	long-term backup, ffmpeg jobs, SC delivery hub

See etc/machines/README.md for adding a new machine.