Backup

AlignTrue provides local backups for safety snapshots. To publish or mirror rules to git remotes, use the remotes commands (separate from backups).

Local backups

Local backups create snapshots of your .aligntrue/ directory before potentially destructive operations. They are stored in .aligntrue/.backups/ and are automatically managed.

Automatic backups

AlignTrue creates safety backups automatically before:

Running aligntrue sync
Restoring from a backup
Running migrations

Manual backups

Create a backup manually with optional notes:


aligntrue backup create --notes "Before major refactor"

Retention policy

Configure retention in .aligntrue/config.yaml:


backup:
  retention_days: 30 # Remove backups older than 30 days
  minimum_keep: 3 # Always keep at least 3 backups

Set retention_days: 0 to disable automatic cleanup.

Publishing to remotes (separate from backups)

To publish or mirror rules to git remotes, configure remotes. Pushes happen during aligntrue sync by default unless you set auto: false on a remote—use aligntrue remotes push for explicit/manual pushes. See the remotes CLI reference and Rule sharing & privacy for routing.

Personal sources and team mode

In team mode, sources marked as personal: true skip team approval requirements:


mode: team
sources:
  - type: git
    url: git@github.com:team/standards.git # Team source - approval required
 
  - type: git
    url: git@github.com:me/personal.git
    personal: true # Personal - no approval needed
    gitignore: true # Exports gitignored; source file still tracked unless you gitignore it

This lets team members have personal rules that:

Update without team approval
Keep their exported artifacts out of the shared repository (sources remain tracked unless you also gitignore them)
Can be pushed to their own private repository (pushed on sync by default; set auto: false to push manually with aligntrue remotes push)

Gitignored rules

Rules from sources with gitignore: true or rules with gitignore: true in frontmatter automatically add their exported files to a managed block in .gitignore (source files are unchanged):


# In config
sources:
  - type: git
    url: git@github.com:me/private-rules.git
    gitignore: true

Or in rule frontmatter:


---
title: My Personal Preferences
gitignore: true
---

SSH URLs (git@...) automatically set gitignore: true.