Backups & Upgrades

What to back up

Data	Where	Backed up automatically?
Database (users, tasks, conversations, settings)	/data/meowbert/postgres-data	Yes, as weekly dumps in /data/meowbert/postgres-backups
Project and task files	/srv/meowbert/runtime	No
Your configuration	config/global.docker.json, .env	No

The postgres-backup service writes a compressed pg_dump every Sunday at midnight and keeps two weeks by default. Change the schedule and retention in .env (MEOWBERT_POSTGRES_BACKUP_SCHEDULE, MEOWBERT_POSTGRES_BACKUP_KEEP_WEEKS, …).

For a complete backup, copy the database dumps, /srv/meowbert/runtime, and your config files to another machine or storage with your usual tool, such as restic, borg, or rsync.

Restoring the database

gunzip -c /data/meowbert/postgres-backups/last/<backup>.sql.gz \
  | docker compose exec -T meowbert-postgres psql -U postgres -d meowbert

Restore into an empty database, before starting the API and worker.

Upgrading

git pull
docker compose pull sandbox-runtime
docker compose up -d --build

If you run the full stack with email, add -f docker-compose.full.yml to both docker compose commands.

Database migrations run automatically when the API starts. Check the changelog before upgrading for anything that needs your attention.