https://github.com/akuli/ghbackup
Local backups of GitHub issue/PR comments
https://github.com/akuli/ghbackup
Last synced: 10 months ago
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Local backups of GitHub issue/PR comments
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/akuli/ghbackup
- Owner: Akuli
- License: mit
- Created: 2025-02-11T19:04:54.000Z (11 months ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2025-02-11T20:06:47.000Z (11 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-02-11T20:29:43.744Z (11 months ago)
- Language: Python
- Size: 29.3 KB
- Stars: 0
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# GitHub Backups
This is a Python script that downloads comments from GitHub.
This way you can look at GitHub issues and pull requests of your projects
even if GitHub is down or your internet doesn't work.
**This script does not download the content of the repository itself, only issue and PR comments.**
By design, Git repositories are always somewhat backed up,
because every developer has a local clone of the whole repository.
## Usage
Create a new directory, and place a file named `info.txt` in it with the following content:
```
GitHub URL: https://github.com/Akuli/ghbackup
```
(or whatever repository you want to back up). Then run:
```
$ pip install requests
$ python3 ghbackup.py path/to/folder_that_contains_info_dot_txt
```
This will copy all issue and pull request comments from GitHub to your local folder.
If you get rate limit errors, you can simply run the same command again later
(will continue where it left off, not start from scratch).
Alternatively, you can specify a GitHub API token.
Requests with an API token have higher rate limits than requests without.
```
$ python3 ghbackup.py path/to/folder_that_contains_info_dot_txt --token $(cat my_secret_token.txt)
```
This assumes you have saved your GitHub token to file `my_secret_token.txt`.
I don't recommend copy/pasting the token directly to command line,
because the token may get saved in your bash history or similar.
## File Structure
GitHub returns everything as JSON.
This script converts GitHub's JSONs into a file structure
that is human-readable and easy to parse.
For example, you can commit the results to Git and get reasonable `git diff` output.
Once the script has ran, the backup folder will look something like this:
```
$ ls
info.txt issue_00024 issue_00051 issue_00084 pr_00014 pr_00035 pr_00059 pr_00079
issue_00002 issue_00026 issue_00052 issue_00085 pr_00016 pr_00036 pr_00061 pr_00080
issue_00003 issue_00029 issue_00056 issue_00086 pr_00017 pr_00037 pr_00062 pr_00089
issue_00004 issue_00031 issue_00060 issue_00087 pr_00019 pr_00038 pr_00063 pr_00090
issue_00005 issue_00032 issue_00065 issue_00088 pr_00020 pr_00039 pr_00064 pr_00092
issue_00006 issue_00040 issue_00070 issue_00091 pr_00021 pr_00043 pr_00066 pr_00094
issue_00008 issue_00041 issue_00071 issue_00093 pr_00022 pr_00046 pr_00067 pr_00095
issue_00011 issue_00042 issue_00074 issue_00097 pr_00025 pr_00047 pr_00068 pr_00096
issue_00012 issue_00044 issue_00077 issue_00098 pr_00027 pr_00053 pr_00069 pr_00099
issue_00013 issue_00045 issue_00078 pr_00001 pr_00028 pr_00054 pr_00072
issue_00015 issue_00048 issue_00081 pr_00007 pr_00030 pr_00055 pr_00073
issue_00018 issue_00049 issue_00082 pr_00009 pr_00033 pr_00057 pr_00075
issue_00023 issue_00050 issue_00083 pr_00010 pr_00034 pr_00058 pr_00076
```
The content of `info.txt` is:
```
GitHub URL: https://github.com/Akuli/ghbackup
Updated: 2025-02-10 22:19:28.145222+00:00
```
Each `issue_xxxxx` and `pr_xxxxx` is a subfolder.
```
$ cd issue_00077/
$ ls
0001_Akuli.txt 0002_Moosems.txt 0003_Akuli.txt 0004_Akuli.txt 0005_Akuli.txt info.txt
```
The content of `issue_xxxxx/info.txt` or `pr_xxxxx/info.txt` looks like this:
```
$ cat info.txt
Title: Jou package manager?
Updated: 2025-01-26T18:25:08+00:00
```
Other files in the subfolders represent comments on the issue or PR, and they look e.g. like this:
```
$ cat 0002_Moosems.txt
GitHub ID: 1868421964
Author: Moosems
Created: 2023-12-24T03:13:38Z
Any thoughts on the package manager?
```
## Automating
I added the following to a shell script that runs every time I log in:
```
# github issues/PR comments backup
(
[ -d gh-backups ] || git init gh-backups
cd gh-backups
[ -f ghbackup.py ] || wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Akuli/ghbackup/refs/heads/main/ghbackup.py
function add_repo {
local url=$1
local dir=$(basename $url)
[ -f $dir/info.txt ] || (mkdir -vp $dir && echo "GitHub URL: $url" | tee $dir/info.txt)
}
add_repo https://github.com/Akuli/3d-game-experiment
add_repo https://github.com/Akuli/3dthingy
add_repo https://github.com/Akuli/asda
add_repo https://github.com/Akuli/catris
...more repos...
while sleep 1h; do
python3 -u ghbackup.py */ || true # may fail due to GitHub API rate limit
git add .
git commit -m "Automatic github backup on $(date)" || true # fails if no changes
done
) &>ghbackup-log.txt &
```