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+# Libertas
+
+Libertas is a modern, self-hosted media library and management system built with performance and privacy in mind. It allows you to organize your photos and videos, automatically extract metadata, and manage your collection through a beautiful web interface.
+
+## Features
+
+- **Media Management**: Securely upload, store, and organize your photos and videos.
+- **Smart Import**: Bulk import existing media collections using the CLI importer, with automatic duplicate detection and storage quota management.
+- **Metadata Extraction**: Automatically extracts and indexes EXIF data (camera model, date taken, etc.) for powerful search and filtering.
+- **Albums**: Create and manage albums to organize your memories.
+- **People & Face Detection**: (In Development) Detect faces and tag people in your photos.
+- **Background Processing**: Efficient asynchronous processing for thumbnail generation and metadata analysis using NATS messaging.
+- **User Management**: Multi-user support with configurable storage quotas.
+
+## Tech Stack
+
+### Backend
+- **Language**: Rust
+- **Framework**: Axum
+- **Database**: PostgreSQL (via SQLx)
+- **Messaging**: NATS
+- **Async Runtime**: Tokio
+
+### Frontend
+- **Framework**: React 19
+- **Build Tool**: Vite
+- **Styling**: Tailwind CSS v4
+- **Routing**: TanStack Router
+- **State Management**: Zustand
+- **UI Components**: Radix UI, Shadcn UI
+
+### Infrastructure
+- **Containerization**: Docker & Docker Compose
+
+## Project Structure
+
+- `libertas_api`: The main REST API server.
+- `libertas_core`: Shared business logic, models, and database repositories.
+- `libertas_frontend`: The React-based web user interface.
+- `libertas_importer`: CLI tool for bulk importing media from the local filesystem.
+- `libertas_infra`: Infrastructure code and factory functions for dependency injection.
+- `libertas_worker`: Background worker service for processing media tasks (e.g., thumbnail generation).
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+- [Rust](https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install) (latest stable)
+- [Node.js](https://nodejs.org/) (v20+ recommended) & npm/pnpm/yarn
+- [Docker](https://www.docker.com/) & Docker Compose
+
+## Getting Started
+
+### 1. Start Infrastructure Services
+
+Start the PostgreSQL database and NATS server using Docker Compose:
+
+```bash
+docker compose up -d
+```
+
+### 2. Run the Backend
+
+You can run the API server and Worker separately.
+
+**Run the API:**
+
+```bash
+cargo run -p libertas_api
+```
+
+**Run the Worker:**
+
+```bash
+cargo run -p libertas_worker
+```
+
+### 3. Run the Frontend
+
+Navigate to the frontend directory and start the development server:
+
+```bash
+cd libertas-frontend
+npm install
+npm run dev
+```
+
+The web interface should now be accessible at `http://localhost:5173` (or the port shown in your terminal).
+
+## CLI Importer Usage
+
+To import an existing folder of photos/videos for a specific user:
+
+```bash
+cargo run -p libertas_importer -- --username <USERNAME> --path /path/to/media --recursive
+```
+
+**Options:**
+- `-u, --username`: The username of the account to import media into.
+- `-p, --path`: The local path to the directory containing media files.
+- `-r, --recursive`: (Optional) Recursively search for media files in subdirectories.
+
+## License
+
+[MIT](LICENSE)