Described is a system and method that synchronizes cached files and directories with a server's files and directories via a layered architecture, by collapsing state information into an index into a fixed set of known states, and looking up the action that synchronizes that state. The actions are then taken to synchronize the content. Any of fifty possible synchronization states are thus handled. A synchronization controller requests a subsystem to evaluate a local cache and remote file system to generate state flags for each item considered for synchronization. The synchronization controller processes the state information to identify a selected table from among a plurality of tables that contain the fifty values, and uses other flags to compute an index into the table. The selected table contains values that index into an action table containing actions that specify an operation set that is requested to synchronize the particular state scenario.