diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 7e48787..ff39525 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ clap_static_development()
 if(CLAP_BUILD_CLI)
     # The CLI target differs from the core library target, while its executable
     # keeps the existing "clap" name and command-line behavior.
-    add_executable(clap-cli src/cli.cpp src/embedding.cpp src/server.cpp src/quantize.cpp)
+    add_executable(clap-cli src/cli.cpp src/embedding.cpp src/search.cpp src/server.cpp src/quantize.cpp)
     target_compile_features(clap-cli PRIVATE cxx_std_20)
     target_link_libraries(clap-cli PRIVATE clap CLI11::CLI11 httplib::httplib nlohmann_json::nlohmann_json)
     set_target_properties(clap-cli PROPERTIES OUTPUT_NAME clap CXX_EXTENSIONS OFF)
diff --git a/src/cli.cpp b/src/cli.cpp
index f03d2ca..b2c795c 100644
--- a/src/cli.cpp
+++ b/src/cli.cpp
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
 #include "clap.h"
 #include "embedding.h"
 #include "quantize.h"
+#include "search.h"
 #include "server.h"
 
 #include <CLI/CLI.hpp>
@@ -65,6 +66,25 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv) {
     embedding->add_flag("--frames", options.frames,
                         "Return final-layer waveform-encoder frames instead of mean pooling");
 
+    SearchOptions search_options;
+    auto *search = app.add_subcommand("search", "Search a directory recursively for similar audio");
+    search->add_option("DIRECTORY", search_options.directory, "Directory of WAV, MP3 and FLAC files")->required();
+    search->add_option("-m,--model", search_options.model_path, "Converted model GGUF")
+        ->required()
+        ->check(CLI::ExistingFile);
+    search->add_option("-k,--top-k", search_options.top_k, "Maximum number of results")
+        ->check(CLI::PositiveNumber)
+        ->capture_default_str();
+    search->add_option("-t,--threads", search_options.threads, "ggml CPU threads (0: hardware concurrency)")
+        ->check(CLI::NonNegativeNumber)
+        ->capture_default_str();
+    search->add_option("--device", search_options.device,
+                       "GGML device name, auto or cpu (default: CLAP_DEVICE or auto)");
+    auto *search_input = search->add_option_group("Input", "Choose one text or audio query");
+    search_input->require_option(1, 1);
+    auto *search_text = search_input->add_option("--text", search_options.text, "UTF-8 text query");
+    search_input->add_option("--audio", search_options.audio_path, "WAV, MP3 or FLAC query")->check(CLI::ExistingFile);
+
     std::string quantize_input;
     std::string quantize_output;
     std::string quantize_type = "Q8_0";
@@ -102,6 +122,10 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv) {
                 throw std::runtime_error("--frames requires --audio and excludes --crop-offset");
             return cmd_embedding(options);
         }
+        if (*search) {
+            search_options.text_requested = search_text->count() != 0;
+            return cmd_search(search_options);
+        }
         if (*serve) {
             return cmd_server(host, port, server_model, server_threads, server_device);
         }
diff --git a/src/search.cpp b/src/search.cpp
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5125772
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/search.cpp
@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
+#include "audio.h"
+#include "clap.h"
+#include "search.h"
+
+#include <nlohmann/json.hpp>
+
+#include <algorithm>
+#include <cmath>
+#include <filesystem>
+#include <iostream>
+#include <memory>
+#include <queue>
+#include <stdexcept>
+#include <utility>
+#include <vector>
+
+namespace {
+namespace fs = std::filesystem;
+
+const char *c_string(const std::string &value) {
+    if (value.find('\0') != std::string::npos)
+        throw std::invalid_argument("text and paths must contain no NUL bytes");
+    return value.c_str();
+}
+
+std::string utf8_path(const fs::path &path) {
+    const auto value = path.generic_u8string();
+    return {value.begin(), value.end()};
+}
+
+void check(clap_status status) {
+    if (status == CLAP_OK)
+        return;
+    if (status == CLAP_OUT_OF_MEMORY)
+        throw std::bad_alloc();
+    throw std::runtime_error(clap_last_error());
+}
+
+using Embedding = std::vector<double>;
+
+Embedding normalize(float *data, std::size_t count) {
+    const std::unique_ptr<float, decltype(&clap_free)> owned(data, clap_free);
+    if (!data || !count)
+        throw std::runtime_error("Search received an empty embedding");
+    double norm_squared = 0;
+    for (std::size_t i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
+        if (!std::isfinite(data[i]))
+            throw std::runtime_error("Search received a non-finite embedding");
+        norm_squared += static_cast<double>(data[i]) * data[i];
+    }
+    if (!std::isfinite(norm_squared) || norm_squared <= 0)
+        throw std::runtime_error("Search received an invalid or zero-norm embedding");
+    const double norm = std::sqrt(norm_squared);
+    Embedding result(count);
+    for (std::size_t i = 0; i < count; ++i)
+        result[i] = data[i] / norm;
+    return result;
+}
+
+Embedding encode_query(CLAP *model, const SearchOptions &options) {
+    float *values = nullptr;
+    std::size_t count = 0;
+    if (options.text_requested)
+        check(clap_encode_text(model, c_string(options.text), &values, &count));
+    else
+        check(clap_encode_audio_file(model, c_string(options.audio_path), 0, &values, &count));
+    return normalize(values, count);
+}
+
+bool audio_file(const fs::path &path) {
+    auto extension = utf8_path(path.extension());
+    for (auto &c : extension)
+        if (c >= 'A' && c <= 'Z')
+            c = static_cast<char>(c + ('a' - 'A'));
+    return extension == ".wav" || extension == ".mp3" || extension == ".flac";
+}
+
+struct Result {
+    std::string path;
+    double score;
+};
+
+struct Better {
+    bool operator()(const Result &left, const Result &right) const {
+        return left.score > right.score || (left.score == right.score && left.path < right.path);
+    }
+};
+} // namespace
+
+int cmd_search(const SearchOptions &options) {
+    try {
+        if (!options.top_k)
+            throw std::invalid_argument("--top-k must be positive");
+        const fs::path directory = fs::u8path(c_string(options.directory));
+        if (!fs::is_directory(directory))
+            throw std::invalid_argument("Search directory does not exist or is not a directory: " + options.directory);
+        if (fs::is_symlink(fs::symlink_status(directory)))
+            throw std::invalid_argument("Search directory must not be a directory symlink: " + options.directory);
+
+        auto runtime = clap_default_options();
+        runtime.threads = options.threads;
+        runtime.device = c_string(options.device);
+        CLAP *handle = nullptr;
+        check(clap_create(c_string(options.model_path), &runtime, &handle));
+        const std::unique_ptr<CLAP, decltype(&clap_destroy)> model(handle, clap_destroy);
+        const auto query = encode_query(model.get(), options);
+
+        // Keep only the best k scores, not the corpus embeddings. Better puts the
+        // worst retained result at the top so replacement is O(log k).
+        std::priority_queue<Result, std::vector<Result>, Better> best;
+        // The default iterator does not follow directory symlinks. Traversal
+        // errors are fatal rather than returning an unexplained partial search.
+        for (const auto &entry : fs::recursive_directory_iterator(directory)) {
+            if (!entry.is_regular_file() || !audio_file(entry.path()))
+                continue;
+            const auto path = utf8_path(entry.path());
+            float *values = nullptr;
+            std::size_t count = 0;
+            const auto status = clap_encode_audio_file(model.get(), c_string(path), 0, &values, &count);
+            if (status != CLAP_OK) {
+                if (status != CLAP_ERROR)
+                    check(status);
+                const std::string error = clap_last_error();
+                // The C API uses CLAP_ERROR for both decoder and model errors.
+                // Re-probe decoding only after failure to distinguish them without
+                // decoding successful candidates twice or hiding model failures.
+                try {
+                    (void)clap::decode_audio(path);
+                } catch (const std::runtime_error &decode_error) {
+                    std::cerr << "Warning: skipping " << path << ": " << decode_error.what() << '\n';
+                    continue;
+                }
+                throw std::runtime_error("Failed to encode " + path + ": " + error);
+            }
+            const auto candidate = normalize(values, count);
+            if (candidate.size() != query.size())
+                throw std::runtime_error("Search query and audio embedding dimensions do not match");
+            double score = 0;
+            for (std::size_t i = 0; i < query.size(); ++i)
+                score += query[i] * candidate[i];
+            if (!std::isfinite(score))
+                throw std::runtime_error("Search produced a non-finite cosine similarity");
+            Result result{path, std::clamp(score, -1.0, 1.0)};
+            if (best.size() < options.top_k) {
+                best.push(std::move(result));
+            } else if (Better{}(result, best.top())) {
+                best.pop();
+                best.push(std::move(result));
+            }
+        }
+        if (best.empty())
+            throw std::runtime_error("No searchable audio files found in: " + options.directory);
+        std::vector<Result> results;
+        while (!best.empty()) {
+            results.push_back(best.top());
+            best.pop();
+        }
+        std::sort(results.begin(), results.end(), Better{});
+        auto output = nlohmann::json::array();
+        for (const auto &result : results)
+            output.push_back({{"path", result.path}, {"score", result.score}});
+        std::cout << output.dump() << '\n';
+        std::cout.flush();
+        if (!std::cout)
+            throw std::runtime_error("Failed to write search output");
+        return 0;
+    } catch (const std::exception &error) {
+        std::cerr << error.what() << '\n';
+        return 1;
+    }
+}
diff --git a/src/search.h b/src/search.h
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..50a3946
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/search.h
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+#pragma once
+
+#include <cstddef>
+#include <string>
+
+struct SearchOptions {
+    std::string directory;
+    std::string model_path;
+    std::string text;
+    std::string audio_path;
+    std::size_t top_k = 10;
+    int threads = 0;
+    std::string device;
+    bool text_requested = false;
+};
+
+int cmd_search(const SearchOptions &options);