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Automated backups using GitHub Actions

Backup your database on a regular basis.

You can use the Supabase CLI to backup your Postgres database. The steps involve running a series of commands to dump roles, schema, and data separately. Inside your repository, create a new file inside the .github/workflows folder called backup.yml. Copy the following snippet inside the file, and the action will run whenever a new PR is created.

Backup action

name: 'backup-database'
on:
pull_request:
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
env:
supabase_db_url: ${{ secrets.SUPABASE_DB_URL }} # For example: postgresql://postgres:[YOUR-PASSWORD]@db.<ref>.supabase.co:5432/postgres
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- uses: supabase/setup-cli@v1
with:
version: latest
- name: Backup roles
run: supabase db dump --db-url "$supabase_db_url" -f roles.sql --role-only
- name: Backup schema
run: supabase db dump --db-url "$supabase_db_url" -f schema.sql
- name: Backup data
run: supabase db dump --db-url "$supabase_db_url" -f data.sql --data-only --use-copy

Periodic Backups Workflow

You can use the GitHub Action to run periodic backups of your database. In this example, the Action workflow is triggered by push and pull_request events on the main branch, manually via workflow_dispatch, and automatically at midnight every day due to the schedule event with a cron expression. The workflow runs on the latest Ubuntu runner and requires write permissions to the repository's contents. It uses the Supabase CLI to dump the roles, schema, and data from your Supabase database, utilizing the SUPABASE_DB_URL environment variable that is securely stored in the GitHub secrets. After the backup is complete, it auto-commits the changes to the repository using the git-auto-commit-action. This ensures that the latest backup is always available in your repository. The commit message for these automated commits is "Supabase backup". This workflow provides an automated solution for maintaining regular backups of your Supabase database. It helps keep your data safe and enables easy restoration in case of any accidental data loss or corruption.

name: Supa-backup

on:
push:
branches: [ main ]
pull_request:
branches: [ main ]
workflow_dispatch:
schedule:
- cron: '0 0 * * *' # Runs every day at midnight
jobs:
run_db_backup:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
permissions:
contents: write
env:
supabase_db_url: ${{ secrets.SUPABASE_DB_URL }} # For example: postgresql://postgres:[YOUR-PASSWORD]@db.<ref>.supabase.co:5432/postgres
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v3
with:
ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}
- uses: supabase/setup-cli@v1
with:
version: latest
- name: Backup roles
run: supabase db dump --db-url "$supabase_db_url" -f roles.sql --role-only
- name: Backup schema
run: supabase db dump --db-url "$supabase_db_url" -f schema.sql
- name: Backup data
run: supabase db dump --db-url "$supabase_db_url" -f data.sql --data-only --use-copy

- uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4
with:
commit_message: Supabase backup

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