Adding folders: give your crew something to look after
The quickest way to put your crew to work is to give them a folder: your Pictures, your Documents, a project you're writing, a codebase. Gezel asks which folders you'd like when you first start it, and you can add more any time with Add a folder (in the File menu, or the Existing Folder choice under New Project).
Read-only, always
A folder you add stays exactly as it is. Gezel reads it and builds a search index of it, but it never changes, moves or deletes a file unless you ask and approve. Everything gezel learns about the folder — the index, photo descriptions, summaries — lives in gezel's own folder, not yours.
When your crew does want to change something, say a fix for a problem in your code, it arrives as a change proposal you read and apply yourself. Nothing reaches your files until you click Apply.
What you see before you add it
Before anything is added, gezel shows you what the folder holds ("12,480 photos · 1,204 only in iCloud") and what your crew will do with it tonight:
Pictures: read every file and describe your photos, so you can find one by what's in it, group them into outings, and propose albums. HEIC photos and camera RAW files (DNG, CR2, NEF, ARW, RAF, ORF, RW2) are read too, with the date, camera and lens each was taken with.
Documents: read every file and summarize your documents.
Code: read, summarize and review the code, and draft fixes for what the review finds, for you to approve.
Files that live only in the cloud (iCloud's Optimize Storage, OneDrive's Files On-Demand) are listed by name and date and left in the cloud, so gezel never downloads them behind your back. A Photos library belongs to the Photos app, so gezel leaves it alone.
The crew that comes with it
Every folder gets the Boekwachter, who reads, describes and reviews it. A code folder also gets a Builder, which is what lets your crew draft fixes overnight, and a photo folder a Curator, who looks after your albums. Gezel adds them once, when you add the folder; if you later take one off the folder, they stay off.
Working on it overnight
New folders are worked on overnight by default, during the Night Shift. The folder's Overview shows what it holds and what your crew will do tonight, with one switch, Work on this folder overnight, to turn that off. Turned off, the folder is still searchable; your crew just leaves it alone at night.
Work that would send anything off this computer (a cloud model, a web search) is never switched on for you: it waits for your OK.