Restore GitHub Backups

The restore workflow selects a GitHub job, one of its Restic destinations, a snapshot, and a repository contained in that snapshot. It restores only that repository, not every repository in an organization job.

From the TUI, choose Jobs, Select job, the GitHub job, then Restore repository. Snapshots and contained repositories are presented as arrow-key selections.

The destination must be absent or an empty directory. Restic verifies every restored file before the command succeeds.

Bare repository

Choose Bare repository to recover the mirror exactly as it was backed up. It contains complete Git objects, branches, tags, other remote refs, and backed up LFS objects, but no checked-out source files:

uv run restic-backups job restore example-organization \
  --repository personal-local \
  --snapshot b3ec67e1 \
  --github-repository example/example-repository \
  --mode bare \
  --target /tmp/example-repository.git

Validate it independently with:

git --git-dir=/tmp/example-repository.git fsck --full

Working clone

Choose Clone for a normal working tree with visible source files:

uv run restic-backups job restore example-organization \
  --repository personal-local \
  --snapshot b3ec67e1 \
  --github-repository example/example-repository \
  --mode clone \
  --target /tmp/example-repository

The tool first restores and verifies the bare mirror in a temporary directory, then clones it without contacting GitHub. It restores backed-up LFS objects into the clone and runs git lfs checkout when LFS data is present. The clone’s origin is reset to the original safe GitHub URL stored in the mirror rather than the temporary local path.

Recover to GitHub

Component	Recovery path	Limitation
git	Push the restored mirror to an empty repository	GitHub-managed refs may be rejected; branches and tags can be pushed separately
lfs	Run git lfs push --all from the restored mirror	Available only when LFS was enabled for the backup
metadata	Retain the GitHub migration export for migration or manual recovery	No direct self-service import back into GitHub.com

GitHub documents migration archives as exports for moving repositories from GitHub.com to GitHub Enterprise Server. Imports cannot be started through the public REST API. See the organization migration API and GitHub.com export guide.

restic-backups does not provide a metadata import command. Treat metadata as archival disaster-recovery material; recreating it through APIs may not preserve original IDs, timestamps, authorship, or every relationship.