RE:USE

Inspiration

I have a lot of work sitting on a drive. Photos, video cuts, notes, design files. When I start something new, I usually know I already made part of it. I just cannot remember where. So I open a blank project and do it again.

RE:USE is what I wanted in that moment. I say what I am making, even something as simple as a video about Mars, and it looks through what I already saved. Old projects count. If a file is useful, I want to see it.

What I learned

I thought the hard part would be searching. It was actually knowing when to stop. If the NAS does not have a match, the honest answer is that it did not find one. A similar picture is not the picture I made. The result I actually need is pretty plain: which old project a file came from, what kind of file it is, and what is still missing.

How I built it

I started from that idea and turned it into a skill with the official UGOS Skill Creation Tool. The skill does not go through the NAS on its own. It asks the file, photo, video, music, and document experts to do their part, in order, and it only uses what those steps actually return.

You give it the brief. You can name one folder if you want a smaller search. If you want an album, a saved note, tags, or a copy, it asks first. The original files stay where they are.

Challenges

I had to stay inside what the NAS can really do. Design files come back by name, path, and tags. The skill does not understand every pixel inside them. Photo checks only cover a small set of hits. I also do not have the test NAS yet, so I have not watched this run on a real device. What I have is the skill package, checked against the official rules, and a simple test for later: put a known subject in an old folder, ask for it, and make sure nothing extra shows up.

Built With

• ai
• nas
• ugos
• ugreen