Backup & Restore

abmind provides encrypted backup and restore for the memory database and associated files.

Creating a backup

abmind backup

Output: ~/.abmind/backups/abmind-YYYYMMDD-HHMM.abm

Options

Flag	Description
--database	DB-only backup (skip core/weekly/config files)
--output <path>	Custom output path
--passphrase <p>	Encryption passphrase
--passphrase-env <VAR>	Read passphrase from env var (default: ABMIND_BACKUP_PASSPHRASE)

Passphrase resolution

1. --passphrase flag (explicit)
2. --passphrase-env variable (default: ABMIND_BACKUP_PASSPHRASE)
3. Falls back to ~/.abmind/secret/abmind.key contents

What's included

Full backup (default):

• memory.db — all messages, extracted memories, embeddings, entity graph
• consolidation/ — daily, weekly, quarterly summary files
• core/ — identity templates
• topics/ — topic knowledge files
• config/ — users.json, .env.memory

DB-only backup (--database):

• memory.db only

Example

# Full backup with custom passphrase
abmind backup --passphrase "my-secure-phrase" --output ~/my-backup.abm

# DB-only backup using env var
export ABMIND_BACKUP_PASSPHRASE="secret123"
abmind backup --database

Restoring from backup

abmind restore --input <path> --passphrase <p>

Options

Flag	Description
--input <path>	Backup file to restore from (required)
--mode <m>	merge (default) or replace
--passphrase <p>	Decryption passphrase
--passphrase-env <VAR>	Read passphrase from env var
--yes	Skip confirmation for --mode replace

Restore modes

Mode	Behavior
merge	Import memories, skip duplicates (by content hash). Non-destructive.
replace	Wipe all existing memories, restore from backup. Requires --yes.

Example

# Merge (safe — keeps existing, adds missing)
abmind restore --input ~/my-backup.abm --passphrase "my-secure-phrase"

# Full replace (destructive — wipes current DB)
abmind restore --input ~/my-backup.abm --passphrase "my-secure-phrase" --mode replace --yes

Encryption

Backups are encrypted with AES-256-GCM. The passphrase is used to derive the encryption key via PBKDF2. Without the correct passphrase, the backup file is unreadable.

Scheduling backups

abmind doesn't include a built-in scheduler. Use cron:

# Daily backup at 3am
0 3 * * * /usr/local/bin/abmind backup --passphrase-env ABMIND_BACKUP_PASSPHRASE

Or integrate with the sleep cycle — the sleep orchestrator can trigger backups as a housekeeping step.

Backup file format

.abm files are encrypted archives containing:

• SQLite database dump (or full DB file)
• File tree (consolidation, core, topics, config)
• Metadata header (timestamp, memory count, file count)

The format is proprietary — use abmind restore to read them.

Pruning old backups

Backups accumulate in ~/.abmind/backups/. Clean up manually or via cron:

# Keep last 7 days of backups
find ~/.abmind/backups/ -name "*.abm" -mtime +7 -delete