---
title: Backups
type: infrastructure
status: active
created: 2026-07-22
updated: 2026-07-22
verified_on: 2026-07-22
confidence: medium
tags: [infrastructure, backups]
sources: [raw/configs/hermes-config-sanitized.txt]
---

# Backups

## Purpose
How Hermes's own configuration/state gets backed up, and what's missing.

## Current mechanism
- **`hermes backup` CLI** (verified via `hermes backup --help`): creates a zip of the entire Hermes config, skills, sessions, and data (excludes the hermes-agent codebase itself).
  - `--quick` / `-q`: fast snapshot of just critical state (`config`, `state.db`, `.env`, `auth`, `cron`)
  - `--label` / `-l`: label for a quick snapshot
  - `--output` / `-o`: custom output path (default `~/hermes-backup-<timestamp>.zip`)
- **Config keys** (`updates:` section of `~/.hermes/config.yaml`):
  - `pre_update_backup: false` — Hermes does **not** automatically back up before self-updates
  - `backup_keep: 5` — retention count (applies to config.yaml.bak* rotation seen during updates, e.g. in [[runbooks/update-hermes-safely]])
  - `non_interactive_local_changes: stash`

## Evidence on disk (2026-07-22)
- One manual full backup exists: `/home/hermes/hermes-backup-2026-07-22-180830.zip` (~235 MB), same day as wiki creation.
- `/home/hermes/wiki-personal-backups/` holds an earlier snapshot of the wiki itself (`SCHEMA.md`, `current-state.md`, `index.md`, `log.md` from 17:34, before later same-day wiki edits) — see [[runbooks/backup-wiki]].
- `/home/hermes/hermes-wiki/` exists but is empty — likely a staging/rename artifact from wiki setup, not an active backup target.
- A dedicated memory-backup script exists: `/home/hermes/.hermes/scripts/mnemosyne-backup.sh` — see [[systems/mnemosyne]].

## Known gaps
- **No scheduled backup job found:** `crontab -l -u hermes` returns empty, and no systemd timer references `hermes` or `backup`. The one full backup on disk appears to have been triggered manually, not on a schedule.
- `pre_update_backup: false` means an in-place `hermes update` will not auto-snapshot first — the manual step in [[runbooks/update-hermes-safely]] step 1 is currently the only safety net.

## Relevant runbooks
- [[runbooks/backup-wiki]]
- [[runbooks/update-hermes-safely]]

## Related
- [[systems/mnemosyne]]
- [[systems/hermes-agent]]