codebak

Incremental code backup with a beautiful TUI

codebak automatically backs up your code projects with smart change detection. Browse backups, compare versions, and recover files through an interactive terminal UI.

Features

• Smart Change Detection — Only backs up when git HEAD changes or files are modified
• Interactive TUI — Navigate projects, versions, and diffs with vim-style keybindings
• Version Comparison — Diff any two backup versions to see added, modified, and deleted files
• Line-by-Line Diff — Drill into files to see exactly what changed with colored diffs
• Integrity Verification — SHA256 checksums ensure your backups are intact
• Automatic Scheduling — Set-and-forget daily backups via launchd
• Safe Recovery — Restore with archive or wipe options to protect existing code

Dashboard with all your projects	Version history with git commits
Compare versions: see what changed	Drill into files for line-by-line diff

Installation

Quick Install (Recommended)

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jmcdonald/codebak/main/install.sh | bash

Homebrew

brew install jmcdonald/tap/codebak

From Source

git clone https://github.com/jmcdonald/codebak.git
cd codebak
make install

Quick Start

# 1. Create config file
codebak init

# 2. Edit config (optional)
$EDITOR ~/.codebak/config.yaml

# 3. Run your first backup
codebak run

# 4. Launch the TUI
codebak

Configuration

Config file location: ~/.codebak/config.yaml

source_dir: ~/code           # Directory containing your projects
backup_dir: ~/backups        # Where backups are stored
schedule: daily
time: "03:00"

exclude:                     # Patterns to exclude from backups
  - node_modules
  - .venv
  - __pycache__
  - .git
  - target
  - dist
  - build

retention:
  keep_last: 30              # Keep last N backups per project

Usage

Commands

TUI Keybindings

Recovery Options

# Restore latest (fails if project exists)
codebak recover myproject

# Restore and archive existing
codebak recover myproject --archive

# Restore and delete existing
codebak recover myproject --wipe

# Restore specific version
codebak recover myproject --version=20241215-100000

How It Works

~/code/                          ~/backups/
├── project-a/                   ├── project-a/
│   └── (your code)      ──►     │   ├── manifest.json
├── project-b/                   │   ├── 20241215-030000.zip
│   └── (your code)              │   └── 20241216-030000.zip
└── project-c/                   └── project-b/
    └── (your code)                  ├── manifest.json
                                     └── 20241216-030000.zip

1. Detect — Monitors git HEAD or file mtimes for changes
2. Backup — Creates timestamped zip with exclusions applied
3. Track — Maintains manifest with checksums and metadata
4. Prune — Automatically removes old backups per retention policy

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.