> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.projectdiscovery.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# File Protocol

> Learn about using Nuclei to work with the local file system

## Overview

Nuclei allows modelling templates that can match/extract on the local file system.

```yaml theme={null}
# Start of file template block
file:
```

## Extensions

To match on all extensions (except the ones in default denylist), use the following -

```yaml theme={null}
extensions:
  - all
```

You can also provide a list of custom extensions that should be matched upon.

```yaml theme={null}
extensions:
  - py
  - go
```

A denylist of extensions can also be provided. Files with these extensions will not be processed by nuclei.

```yaml theme={null}
extensions:
  - all

denylist:
  - go
  - py
  - txt
```

By default, certain extensions are excluded in nuclei file module. A list of these is provided below-

```
3g2,3gp,7z,apk,arj,avi,axd,bmp,css,csv,deb,dll,doc,drv,eot,exe,
flv,gif,gifv,gz,h264,ico,iso,jar,jpeg,jpg,lock,m4a,m4v,map,mkv,
mov,mp3,mp4,mpeg,mpg,msi,ogg,ogm,ogv,otf,pdf,pkg,png,ppt,psd,rar,
rm,rpm,svg,swf,sys,tar,tar.gz,tif,tiff,ttf,txt,vob,wav,webm,wmv,
woff,woff2,xcf,xls,xlsx,zip
```

## More Options

**max-size** parameter can be provided which limits the maximum size (in bytes) of files read by nuclei engine.

As default the `max-size` value is 5 MB (5242880), Files larger than the `max-size` will not be processed.

***

**no-recursive** option disables recursive walking of directories / globs while input is being processed for file module of nuclei.

## Matchers / Extractors

**File** protocol supports 2 types of Matchers -

| Matcher Type | Part Matched |
| ------------ | ------------ |
| word         | all          |
| regex        | all          |

| Extractors Type | Part Matched |
| --------------- | ------------ |
| word            | all          |
| regex           | all          |

## **Example File Template**

The final example template file for a Private Key detection is provided below.

```yaml theme={null}
id: google-api-key

info:
  name: Google API Key
  author: pdteam
  severity: info

file:
  - extensions:
      - all
      - txt

    extractors:
      - type: regex
        name: google-api-key
        regex:
          - "AIza[0-9A-Za-z\\-_]{35}"
```

```bash theme={null}
# Running file template on http-response/ directory
nuclei -t file.yaml -file -target http-response/

# Running file template on output.txt
nuclei -t file.yaml -file -target output.txt
```

<Tip>
  More complete examples are provided [here](/templates/protocols/file-examples)
</Tip>