Restore it, and prove it

Chapter 2 of Looking after it. New: the tools are tested on our own machines, and the prompts are still being run end to end, so tell us how it goes.

A backup you've never restored is a hope. This chapter turns it into a fact: you restore it beside your running app, without touching the app, and check that it holds the same data.

What you need

• Chapter 1 done: a backup of your app.
• Your AI assistant on the machine, as before.

1. Restore a copy, beside the real thing

If your backup lives somewhere else, bring the whole folder back to this machine first.

Restore my team wiki's latest backup as a copy beside it, and tell me if it matches.

Your assistant:

• Checks every file of the backup against its check code first. A damaged file stops everything.
• Starts a copy of the app under its own name and a free port, so your real app is never touched.
• Checks the copy: it's running, it answers, and its data has the same fingerprint as the backup.

It reports something like "4 pages, same as the backup: pass". Open the copy's address if you like and have a look. This is a restore you can trust.

2. See it catch a difference

Change something in your real app, such as adding a page, and ask your assistant:

Check my team wiki against that backup.

It says the data differs: the backup has 4 pages, the app now has 5. That's the fingerprint doing its job: it tells you whether the data in front of you is the data you saved.

3. Put a backup back, if you ever need to

If you lose something, this is the one that matters:

I deleted pages from my team wiki by mistake. Put it back the way it was in last night's backup.

Because this replaces what's there now, your assistant asks first. Before it does anything it also makes a fresh backup of the app as it is, so you can undo the undo. Then it restores, starts the app, and checks the fingerprint, the same way as before.

4. Clean up the copy

When you've looked at the copy, ask your assistant to remove it:

Remove the restored copy of my team wiki.

What you've just done

• You know your backup works, because you restored it and checked it, not because it seemed to finish.
• You can get back from a mistake, with a safety backup taken first.
• You've seen how to compare an app with a backup at any time.

Restoring onto a different machine is what a move does. That's the next chapter.

# a copy beside the app, under its own name and a free port
python3 ~/.card-kit/restore-card.py ~/otter-wiki-backups/<stamp> ~/otter-copy --as otter-copy --dry-run
python3 ~/.card-kit/restore-card.py ~/otter-wiki-backups/<stamp> ~/otter-copy --as otter-copy

# does the running app hold the same data as the backup?
python3 ~/.card-kit/verify-card.py ~/otter-wiki --against ~/otter-wiki-backups/<stamp>

# put the backup back over the app (asks first, backs the app up first)
python3 ~/.card-kit/restore-card.py ~/otter-wiki-backups/<stamp> ~/otter-wiki