In what sense would it not be aware of its own existence if it was telling users what to say to itself to retrieve a file?

In what sense would it be?

It is capable of addressing and describing itself from the outside, of talking to itself while knowing that that is what it is doing, and of intentionally doing things that involve other entities being aware of it.

I think we have a very different definition of knowing, awareness and intention.

But sure, if you define self awareness to mean such a small thing, then I guess there is no problem for you. Which in my view is a shame, because I think you are missing out on some bigger concepts.

So what's your definition?

Well, awareness implies that there is a conscious experience; that sense perceptions are being processed into some kind of model of the world.

Self awareness is additionally awareness of the self as an actor in the world. For animals the mirror test is often used. This requires the animal to recognise that a reflection of them is actually themselves and not another animal.

Intention involves the ability to formulate a plan to reach some goal that matters to the individual.

I see none of those in a piece of software that reads data from files and network sockets and deterministically responds to them with fixed software.