backup

A Mac backup audit and setup command that checks what data would survive if the computer stopped working. It examines Time Machine, iCloud Drive, and connected external disks.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to check backups of folders such as Desktop, Documents, and Pictures, distinguish an absent backup from a disconnected disk, and produce a coverage table.
Why use it?
It shows which important files are protected and which could be lost, helping identify gaps in the backup setup.

Command

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/xiaolai/mac-it-guy-pro/backup
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/xiaolai/mac-it-guy-pro
Per session 22 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 778 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 $0.00022 $0.00778
Opus 5 $0.00011 $0.00389
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00156
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00078

Measured 2d ago against content hash cd865853dfae, 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 2d ago.

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.

commands/backup.md · 49 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 49 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Backup — the most important visit

Read ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/it-core/SKILL.md first — the safety contract is binding, especially: admin work handed to the user, never touch existing backups (the guard hook also enforces tmutil delete/disable as out of bounds). Read ~/ITGuy/machine.md if it exists. If uname is not Darwin, say this version supports Mac only and stop.

Step 1: Audit what exists

Dispatch the mac-it-guy-pro:diagnostician agent (via Task) for the backup area, plus these direct read-only checks:

  • Time Machine: destination configured? latest backup date? (distinguish "no backup" from "backup disk not connected" — recipes in macos-recipes)
  • iCloud Drive: ls ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs 2>/dev/null — present and syncing Desktop/Documents, or not
  • External disks currently mounted: ls /Volumes

Step 2: Map coverage against what matters

Build the coverage table from the user's actual key folders (profile Owner/Conventions first; otherwise Desktop, Documents, Pictures, plus anything they name):

What Where it lives Covered by Verdict
Photos ~/Pictures nothing 🔴 would be lost

Top line of the report answers the only question that matters, in one sentence: "If this Mac died tonight, you would lose: …"

Step 3: Propose a strategy

Explain 3-2-1 in one plain sentence (three copies, two kinds of storage, one away from home) — then propose the smallest setup that closes the 🔴 rows, as an options table (Option | Cost | Effort | What it protects). Recommend exactly one. Do not recommend buying anything without naming a cheaper alternative in the same table.

Step 4: Set it up — user does the clicking

Time Machine setup, disk formatting choices, and iCloud toggles live in System Settings and are the user's hands, not yours: give a numbered click-path for each step, wait for their "done", then verify from the terminal (e.g. tmutil destinationinfo now shows the disk; first backup running). Never format a disk yourself — if the chosen disk needs erasing, that is a Disk Utility walkthrough with an explicit "this erases everything currently on that disk" warning.

Read the full file on GitHub · 49 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. 2d ago First seen · 49 lines · 22 tokens per session scan A cd865853dfae

Subscribe to this mod's changes

backup is a command published in the GitHub repository xiaolai/mac-it-guy-pro (5 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 22 tokens to every session and 778 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 2026-08-31.