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Backup & Restore

Protect your skills and recover from mistakes.

Overview​

skillshare maintains automatic backups and provides manual backup/restore commands.

Automatic Backups​

Backups are created automatically before:

  • skillshare sync
  • skillshare target remove

Location: ~/.local/share/skillshare/backups/<timestamp>/

Manual Backup​

All targets​

skillshare backup

Specific target​

skillshare backup claude

Preview​

skillshare backup --dry-run

List Backups​

skillshare backup --list

Example output:

Backups
─────────────────────────────────────────
  2026-01-20_15-30-00/
    claude/    5 skills, 2.1 MB
    cursor/    5 skills, 2.1 MB
  2026-01-19_10-00-00/
    claude/    4 skills, 1.8 MB

Restore​

From latest backup​

skillshare restore claude

From specific backup​

skillshare restore claude --from 2026-01-19_10-00-00

Preview​

skillshare restore claude --dry-run

What Restore Does​

Note: After restore, the target contains real files (not symlinks). Run skillshare sync to re-establish symlinks.

Cleanup Old Backups​

skillshare backup --cleanup

Removes backups older than the configured retention period.

Recovery Scenarios​

# If git is initialized (recommended)
cd ~/.config/skillshare/skills
git checkout -- deleted-skill/

# Or restore from backup
skillshare restore claude
skillshare sync

Messed up sync mode​

skillshare restore claude
skillshare target claude --mode merge
skillshare sync

Want to undo recent changes​

skillshare backup --list
skillshare restore claude --from <earlier-timestamp>

Best Practices​

Before risky operations​

skillshare backup

After major changes​

skillshare push -m "Major update"  # Git backup

Weekly maintenance​

skillshare backup --cleanup

Git as Backup​

Git provides an additional backup layer:

# Recover deleted skill
cd ~/.config/skillshare/skills
git checkout -- deleted-skill/

# See history
git log --oneline

# Restore to previous commit
git checkout <commit-hash> -- specific-skill/

See Also​