Ask every configured catalogue for scenes. The two paths are exclusive: giving 'query' runs the full-text search and every typed argument is reported as not received, while omitting it runs the faceted query on the typed arguments. A catalogue offering no full-text search is named as absent from a 'query' search, and dropping 'query' for 'title' reaches it. Counts are per catalogue and are never added, and a catalogue that failed, one never asked and one that found nothing are three different states an answer names.

Ask every configured catalogue for performers. The two paths are exclusive: 'query' runs the full-text search over names and aliases, and every typed argument is then reported as not received. A catalogue offering no full-text search is named as absent from a 'query' search, and dropping 'query' for 'name' reaches it. 'scene_count' counts what each catalogue has indexed and never a person's work.

Read one catalogued scene by its identifier. The identifier names the catalogue that minted it, as returned by search_scenes or find_by_fingerprint. Sections are opt-in because a scene's fingerprints weigh more than everything else it carries.

Read one catalogued performer by its identifier. 'scene_count' counts what that catalogue has indexed: a settled record naming a career spanning decades can report none, and that states the catalogue's coverage, never a career. An identifier folded into another answers as a marker naming its successor.

Ask every configured catalogue which scene a file corresponds to, from the hashes held for it. Pass every hash of one file together: one request settles what three would ask separately. MD5 and OSHASH match the same file; PHASH matches images that resemble each other, which is no evidence that two files are the same.