hbackup

Backup and restore tool for Hermes Agent + OpenClaw installations.

Features

• Incremental-aware discovery: Backs up ~/work/hermes-agent, ~/work/openclaw, ~/.hermes, ~/.openclaw, systemd units, and more
• SQLite-safe: Uses sqlite3 .backup for live database copies
• Compressed archives: tar.zst format with zstd compression
• Google Drive upload: Via rclone integration
• Cross-platform home dir: Uses dirs crate — no hardcoded paths
• Auto workspace discovery: Scans ~/.openclaw/workspace* dynamically

Install

cd tools/hbackup
cargo build --release
cp target/release/hbackup ~/.local/bin/

Usage

Backup

# Create backup
hbackup backup

# Dry run
hbackup backup --dry-run

# Custom output
hbackup backup -o /mnt/external/my-backup.tar.zst

# Exclude patterns
hbackup backup -x target -x .git

Restore

# Restore from archive
hbackup restore ~/backups/hermes-openclaw-backup-20260101-120000.tar.zst

# Dry run
hbackup restore --dry-run ~/backups/...

# Force overwrite
hbackup restore --force ~/backups/...

List Backups

hbackup list

Upload to Google Drive

# Setup guide
hbackup setup drive

# Upload to Google Drive (requires rclone configured)
hbackup upload --drive ~/backups/hermes-openclaw-backup-*.tar.zst

# Custom remote name / folder
hbackup upload --drive --drive-remote mygdrive --drive-folder backups/2026 ~/backups/...

Auto (backup + upload)

# Create backup then upload to configured destination
hbackup auto

Configure ~/.config/hbackup/config.toml:

[upload]
destination = "user@server:/backups/"  # scp/rsync
drive_remote = "gdrive"                  # Google Drive remote name
drive_folder = "backups/hermes"          # Google Drive folder

Cron Setup

# Daily backup at 3 AM
0 3 * * * /home/USER/.local/bin/hbackup auto >> /home/USER/.local/state/hermes/hbackup-cron.log 2>&1

Config File

~/.config/hbackup/config.toml:

[upload]
# For scp/rsync upload:
method = "scp"  # or "rsync"
destination = "user@backup-server:/backups/"

# For Google Drive upload:
drive_remote = "gdrive"
drive_folder = "backups/hermes"

What Gets Backed Up

Path	Description
~/work/hermes-agent	Hermes Agent source and config
~/work/openclaw	OpenClaw workspace
~/.hermes	Hermes state, logs, cache
~/.openclaw	OpenClaw config, workspaces (auto-discovered)
~/.config/systemd/user/	User systemd units
SQLite databases	Copied safely via sqlite3 .backup

Open Source Notes

This tool was extracted from a personal setup. Before publishing:

• All hardcoded paths removed (uses dirs::home_dir())
• Workspace names auto-discovered from ~/.openclaw/workspace*
• No user-specific paths remain

License

MIT