The Franconian
Coder Studio

Anyone working with computers today almost automatically assumes that everything lives in “the” cloud—always accessible, securely stored, and free from worries about data loss. The same mindset often applies to software development, though in this case, it’s not just any cloud but a Git repository that diligently holds all your data. Well, as long as you remember to regularly push your local changes to a central location. 😉

Personally, I still rely on backups. For one, the cloud is not a backup—it merely shifts the problem elsewhere. The likelihood of data loss is probably much lower than on a local system, but it’s still not foolproof. And when it comes to development, it’s not just about the code. It’s also about tool configurations, development environments, and settings—things I definitely don’t want to rebuild from scratch. This isn’t just about unforeseen data loss; even something as simple as switching to a new machine can make backups invaluable.

My setup for this is incredibly simple. A Taskfile serves as the command center for these tasks, sitting right in my home directory. The actual backup is handled by a small shell script—yes, even on Windows—thanks to a minimalist interpreter called gosh. Incidentally, gosh is already built into Task, allowing direct command execution if needed.

The real backup magic happens with restic. It encrypts data directly and supports a wide range of storage backends. If your preferred destination isn’t natively supported, you can rely on rclone for additional flexibility. This setup works seamlessly across macOS, Linux, and Windows. Just recently, I migrated from macOS to Windows with minimal effort, all thanks to this approach.

🧠 AI-generated: Simple Setup Guide for Developer Backups

This section was automatically generated to help you implement the ideas from the article directly.

Requirements

Make sure these tools are installed:

• Taskfile – for task automation
• gosh – shell interpreter (especially useful on Windows)
• restic – backup tool with encryption
• rclone – optional, for cloud storage support

Step 1: Create a Taskfile

Place this Taskfile.yml in your home directory:

version: "3"

tasks:
    backup:
        cmds:
            - gosh backup.sh
        desc: Run backup of development environment

Step 2: Write the Backup Script

Create a file named backup.sh:

#!/bin/sh

REPO="rclone:remote-backup:/dev-backups"

restic -r "$REPO" backup "$HOME/.config" "$HOME/projects" "$HOME/.local/bin"

Step 3: Configure Storage

Use rclone config to set up your cloud destination (e.g. Google Drive, S3, WebDAV). Replace remote-backup with your configured remote name.

Step 4: Run the Backup

Execute the task:

task backup

Restore Example

To restore your latest backup:

restic -r "$REPO" restore latest --target $HOME/restore

Summary

This setup is:

• Cross-platform (macOS, Linux, Windows)
• Minimal and easy to maintain
• Secure with encryption
• Flexible for local or cloud backups

Have thoughts on this article? Join the discussion on —I’d love to hear your perspective!