Backup and recovery

What to preserve

Back up application resources and records, uploaded files and their metadata, application code, and the environment configuration needed to read encrypted data. Keep PEPPER stable: losing or changing it can make encrypted values unreadable. Store secret backups with restricted access.

Do not treat Git as a complete runtime backup. Records or media may be excluded from version control; temporary data, jobs and sessions have different retention needs.

Make a consistent backup

Use your hosting platform's backup or snapshot workflow. Coordinate record and media capture so references remain consistent; quiesce writes where your storage does not provide a consistent snapshot. Document which runtime directories are preserved and which are rebuilt. Nimbly does not prescribe a universal backup-provider command.

Test recovery in isolation

1. Restore application code, records, media and required runtime configuration into an isolated environment.
2. Restore dependencies and build assets using the documented setup and build tooling.
3. Rebuild indexes when needed and clear stale resource caches.
4. Check representative public pages, authorized resource reads, media and editing.
5. Verify scheduled work and mail settings before allowing external side effects.

Record recovery duration and verify the recovered data timestamp against your project's recovery objective.