extract custom object from sandbox into scratch org (and version control system)

Question

Issue

How to extract custom object meta-data into my DX project since sfdx force:source:status does not recognise the imported custom object via mdapi?

The reason to do this is to decouple my DX project from sandbox

Details

1. I have a very simple custom object with all default fields in sandbox.
2. I retrieved this custom object metadata from sandbox by sfdx force:mdapi:retrieve
3. I imported the metadata into a fresh new scratch org by sfdx force:mdapi:deploy
4. I validate that the custom object with all its fields is visible in scratch org
5. I run sfdx force:source:status, it doesn't notice this change in the corresponding scratch org

Expected result

sfdx force:source:status should have shown the diff and I would be able to pull the changes down to the local project.

Answer 1

I figured out that I need to convert the extracted meta-data from mdapi and convert into DX format in my DX project. Scratch org will not know the difference if I directly push these meta-data via mdapi into scratch org.

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assume a package.xml containing list of meta-data is in place, the goal is to retrieve meta-data from sandbox and conver to a DX format so we can save these metadata to git as well as push into scratch org

sfdx force:mdapi:retrieve -r retrieveCodeoutput -k package.xml -u sandbox1

unzip retrieveCodeoutput/unpackaged.zip

then move the unpacked folder to a DX project root path

sfdx force:mdapi:convert --rootdir unpackaged/

above command will convert metadata info and save to current DX project

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