GitHub Projects Backup Tool

This tool automatically backs up GitHub repositories from a specified user's starred list. It includes features like repository size checking, retry mechanisms for large repositories, and detailed backup status reporting.

Features

• Backs up repositories from a user's GitHub starred list
• Shows repository sizes before downloading
• Handles large repositories with optimized Git settings
• Provides detailed backup status and error reporting
• Supports shallow cloning for faster initial backups
• Automatic retry mechanism for failed downloads
• Detailed backup metadata tracking

Setup

1. Install the required dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Make sure you have Git installed on your system

3. You need a GitHub token to run the script. You can obtain one by visiting https://github.com/settings/tokens and creating a new token with the repo permission.

4. Create a .env file in the project directory and add your GitHub token:

GITHUB_TOKEN=your_token_here

Usage

Run the script with default settings:

python github_backup.py

Or specify a different user and list name:

python github_backup.py username listname

Default Values

• Username: "jing8263xiao"
• List name: "backup"

Output

The script will:

1. Configure Git settings for optimal performance
2. Display repository sizes before downloading
3. Create or update repositories in the backups directory
4. Show a detailed summary of successful and failed backups
5. Generate a backup_metadata.json file containing:
   • Timestamp of the last backup
   • List of successfully backed up repositories
   • List of failed repositories with error messages
   • Total number of processed repositories
   • Success and failure counts

Error Handling

The script includes several features to handle common issues:

• Automatic retries for network-related failures
• Exponential backoff between retry attempts
• Shallow cloning for large repositories
• Optimized Git settings for better performance
• Detailed error reporting for troubleshooting

Backup Directory Structure

backups/
├── repository1.git/
├── repository2.git/
├── ...
└── backup_metadata.json