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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 (skill targets and agent targets)
  • skillshare sync agents (agent targets only)
  • skillshare target remove

Location: ~/.local/share/skillshare/backups/<timestamp>/ (agent backups appear as <target>-agents/ next to the regular <target>/ directories).

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>

Recover an agent​

Agents have their own backup entries (<target>-agents) and follow the same flow as skills:

# Manual agent backup
skillshare backup agents claude

# Restore from latest
skillshare restore agents claude

# Restore from a specific timestamp
skillshare restore agents claude --from 2026-01-19_10-00-00

In project mode, only agents can be backed up or restored — skillshare backup -p agents works, but plain skillshare backup -p errors. See backup for the project-mode rule.

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​