backup

A command that copies production Dolt databases to local backup locations and, unless disabled, to iCloud. Dolt is a database system with Git-like version tracking.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to discover configured databases, check Dolt health, sync changed data to filesystem backups, and optionally skip the iCloud copy with the stated option.
Why use it?
It provides a repeatable way to protect database data and stops when the Dolt server is unavailable instead of attempting a backup against a hung service.

Command for Claude Code

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/gastownhall/gastown/backup
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/gastownhall/gastown

Made for: Claude Code.

Per session 17 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 978 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00017 $0.00978
Opus 5 $0.00009 $0.00489
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.00196
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00098

Measured yesterday against content hash 3c146bfba720, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

backup scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.claude/commands/backup.md · 132 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 132 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Dolt Backup

Sync production Dolt databases to filesystem backups with smart change detection. Runs the same cycle as mol-dog-backup / the dolt-backup plugin.

Arguments: $ARGUMENTS If --skip-offsite is passed, skip the iCloud rsync step.

Configuration

DOLT_DATA_DIR=~/gt/.dolt-data
BACKUP_DIR=~/gt/.dolt-backup
ICLOUD_DIR=~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/gt-dolt-backup
PROD_DBS: auto-discovered (databases with <name>-backup remotes)
BACKUP_TIMEOUT=120s per database
HANG_THRESHOLD=30s for server ping
DOLT_PORT=3307

Execution Steps

Step 1: Verify Dolt server is responsive

gt dolt status

Also ping directly to detect hangs:

timeout 30 dolt sql --host 127.0.0.1 --port 3307 --user root --password "" \
  --no-tls -q "SELECT 1" --result-format csv

If the ping hangs (takes > 30s) or fails:

gt escalate "dolt-backup: Dolt server hung or unreachable" -s CRITICAL

STOP — do not attempt backups against a hung server.

Step 2: Discover databases with backup remotes

List directories in ~/gt/.dolt-data/ and check each for a <name>-backup remote:

ls ~/gt/.dolt-data/

For each directory (skip dotfiles):

cd ~/gt/.dolt-data/<name> && dolt backup

If the output contains <name>-backup, include it in the backup list. Expected databases: hq, beads, gastown.

Step 3: Check each DB for changes and sync

For each database with a backup remote:

3a. Get current HEAD hash:

cd ~/gt/.dolt-data/<name> && dolt log -n 1 --oneline | head -1 | cut -d' ' -f1

3b. Compare against last backed-up hash:

cat ~/gt/.dolt-backup/<name>/.last-backup-hash 2>/dev/null

If hashes match and current hash is not "unknown", skip (unchanged).

3c. Sync if changed:

cd ~/gt/.dolt-data/<name> && timeout 120 dolt backup sync <name>-backup

3d. Record successful hash:

mkdir -p ~/gt/.dolt-backup/<name>
echo "<current_hash>" > ~/gt/.dolt-backup/<name>/.last-backup-hash

Read the full file on GitHub · 132 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 132 lines · 17 tokens per session scan A 3c146bfba720

Subscribe to this mod's changes

backup is a command published in the GitHub repository gastownhall/gastown (17,849 stars, last pushed 13d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 17 tokens to every session and 978 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.