Your First Backup
Create an on-demand backup to protect your repositories.
Prerequisites
- A GitSec account (sign up)
- At least one connected installation (connect GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket)
Steps
- Navigate to Repositories > GitHub, Repositories > GitLab or Repositories > Bitbucket in the sidebar. Each Self-Managed GitLab instance you connect appears as its own entry under Repositories.
- Click on the repository you want to back up.
- On the repository detail page, you'll see the Overview tab with a summary of the repository.
- Click the Backup button to trigger an on-demand backup.
- The backup process will start. Follow it step by step in the Background jobs panel in the bottom-right corner of the screen. The panel stays with you as you move between pages, shows which steps failed, and lets you cancel the run. The run is also recorded in Activity.
What Gets Backed Up?
The scopes you can back up depend on the provider. Code & Commits is always included, because a backup without source code cannot be restored.
| Scope | GitHub | GitLab | Bitbucket | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Repository Metadata | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Repository details and settings |
| Code & Commits | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | All branches, tags, and commit history. Always included |
| Pull Requests (Merge Requests on GitLab) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Open and closed pull requests. On GitHub and Bitbucket, their comments are included |
| Merge Request Comments | ✓ | Comments on GitLab merge requests, offered as a separate scope | ||
| Issues | ✓ | ✓ | Open and closed issues | |
| Releases | ✓ | ✓ | Releases of the repository | |
| Collaborators | ✓ | ✓ | People with access to the repository |
note
On Bitbucket, tags are backed up together with the source code in Code & Commits.
Viewing Your Backup
Once the backup completes:
- Go to the Backups tab on the repository detail page to see per-repo backups.
- Or navigate to Backup Snapshots in the sidebar to see all backups across repositories.
Each backup entry shows its name, repository, date and size. A backup you haven't named shows its finish time instead. You can rename a backup and pin important ones so they stay in view; pinned backups can be listed on their own with the Pinned only filter. See Viewing Backups for more information.
Next Steps
- Set up a scheduler for automatic recurring backups.
- Configure push event backups to back up on every git push.
- Configure BYOS storage to use your own storage provider.