claude-hooks/docs/how-to/restore-backup.md

# How to Restore Your Work from a Backup

**When to use this guide**: Your Claude session crashed, lost context, or you need to recover previous work.

## Quick Recovery (Most Common)

If you just lost context but your files are still there:

1. **Check for session recovery files**:
   ```bash
   ls -la | grep -E "(LAST_SESSION|ACTIVE_TODOS|RECOVERY_GUIDE)"
   ```

2. **Read your session summary**:
   ```bash
   cat LAST_SESSION.md
   ```

3. **Continue from your todos**:
   ```bash
   cat ACTIVE_TODOS.md
   ```

This covers 90% of recovery scenarios. If you need to restore actual files, continue below.

## Full File Recovery

### Find Available Backups

List all available backups:
```bash
claude-hooks list-backups
```

Or check the backups directory directly:
```bash
ls -la .claude_hooks/backups/
```

You'll see entries like:
```
🗂️  backup_20240115_143022
   📅 2024-01-15T14:30:22
   📝 context_threshold

🗂️  backup_20240115_141856  
   📅 2024-01-15T14:18:56
   📝 critical_operation
```

### Choose the Right Backup

**For context-related crashes**: Use the most recent `context_threshold` backup  
**For command failures**: Use the backup before the problematic operation  
**For file corruption**: Use the backup with the timestamp just before your issue

### Restore Files from Backup

1. **Navigate to the backup directory**:
   ```bash
   cd .claude_hooks/backups/backup_20240115_143022
   ```

2. **Check what files are available**:
   ```bash
   ls -la files/
   ```

3. **Copy specific files back**:
   ```bash
   cp files/important_script.py ../../
   ```

   Or restore all modified files:
   ```bash
   cp -r files/* ../../
   ```

### Restore from Git Backup

If git backups were enabled:

1. **Check git history**:
   ```bash
   git log --oneline | grep "Claude hooks auto-backup"
   ```

2. **See what changed in a backup commit**:
   ```bash
   git show abc1234
   ```

3. **Restore specific files**:
   ```bash
   git checkout abc1234 -- path/to/file.py
   ```

4. **Or reset to a backup completely** (careful - loses recent work):
   ```bash
   git reset --hard abc1234
   ```

## Restore Session State

If you want to continue exactly where you left off:

1. **Restore the patterns database**:
   ```bash
   cp .claude_hooks/backups/backup_20240115_143022/state/patterns/* .claude_hooks/patterns/
   ```

2. **Review the session state**:
   ```bash
   cat .claude_hooks/backups/backup_20240115_143022/state/session.json
   ```

3. **Check what commands were running**:
   ```bash
   jq '.commands_executed[-5:]' .claude_hooks/backups/backup_20240115_143022/state/session.json
   ```

## Emergency Recovery

If something went very wrong and you need to recover everything:

1. **Find the most recent emergency backup**:
   ```bash
   ls -la .claude_hooks/emergency_backup.json
   ```

2. **Extract the session data**:
   ```bash
   jq '.session_state.modified_files[]' .claude_hooks/emergency_backup.json
   ```

3. **Manually locate and recover files** using the file paths from the emergency backup

## Validate Your Recovery

After restoring:

1. **Check that your files are correct**:
   ```bash
   git status
   git diff
   ```

2. **Verify Claude Hooks is working**:
   ```bash
   claude-hooks status
   ```

3. **Test a simple command** to ensure hooks are functioning:
   ```bash
   echo 'print("test")' > test_recovery.py
   python3 test_recovery.py
   rm test_recovery.py
   ```

## Prevention for Next Time

To make future recovery easier:

- Enable git backups: Set `"git_enabled": true` in config/settings.json  
- Lower backup threshold: Set `"backup_threshold": 0.75` to backup more frequently
- Create manual backups before risky operations: Run `claude-hooks backup` 

## Troubleshooting

**No backups found**: Check if hooks were properly installed with `claude-hooks status`

**Backup files corrupted**: Try the git backup method or emergency recovery

**Can't find recent work**: Check if files are in a different directory - backups preserve the relative path structure

**Git backups not working**: Ensure git is initialized in your project: `git init`