Backup Radar

Backup Radar CLI and MCP server

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the backup-radar-cli binary. You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill. If it is missing, install it first:

1. macOS / Linux:

   bashCopy code
   bash <(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Servosity/msp-skills/main/skills/backup-radar/install.sh)
   

2. Windows (PowerShell):

   powershellCopy code
   iwr -useb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Servosity/msp-skills/main/skills/backup-radar/install.ps1 | iex
   

3. Verify: backup-radar-cli --version
4. Ensure ~/.local/bin (macOS / Linux) or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\msp-skills (Windows) is on $PATH.

The installer downloads the backup-radar-cli and backup-radar-mcp binaries into ~/.local/bin (macOS / Linux) or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\msp-skills (Windows). It does not register the skill with your agent and writes no MCP client config - see mcp-install.md for that wire-up.

If --version reports "command not found" after install, the runtime cannot see the binary directory on $PATH. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.

Covers the ScalePad Backup Radar API v3 (client health, devices, ingest, retire) and the read-only v2 API (backups, results, inactive, retired, overview) in one binary. Sync both into SQLite, then run check for the morning triage, unwatched for blind spots, coverage diff against your backup vendor's device list, and scorecard for client QBRs.

When to Use This CLI

Use this CLI for MSP backup monitoring questions answered by Backup Radar: daily triage of failed or missing backup results, client compliance trends, finding backups that are inactive, unmapped or unticketed, reconciling a backup vendor's device list against what Backup Radar monitors, retiring stale backups, and pushing custom backup results.

Anti-triggers

Do not use this CLI for:

• Running, restoring or configuring backups: use the backup vendor's own CLI (datto-bcdr, veeam, cove, axcient, acronis)
• Managing PSA tickets: Backup Radar reports ticket counts, and backups retire --close-psa-tickets only closes tickets tied to backups it retires
• ScalePad Lifecycle Manager, Core assets or ControlMap data: those are other ScalePad APIs

Unique Capabilities

Daily triage and reporting

• check - One ranked list of today's failing, silent and at-risk backups, each marked new or ongoing with days in status and open ticket count; uses whichever keys you synced.

  Reach for this first in a daily backup review instead of paging raw device or backup lists.

  bashCopy code
  backup-radar-cli check --include-at-risk --agent
  

• scorecard - In-compliance rate, weekly trend and worst devices for one client, or every client ranked, from up to a year of client health (v3 key); worst devices use synced device history (each sync fetches 90 days; stored days accumulate up to a year).

  Use it for QBR backup slides and client health rankings.

  bashCopy code
  backup-radar-cli scorecard "Acme Dental" --days 90 --agent
  

• timeline - One device's day-by-day backup story merged from both API generations, with tickets, tags and notes; --live adds each day's v2 results (v2 key).

  Use it to explain a single device's failures before a client call.

  bashCopy code
  backup-radar-cli timeline "DC01" --job "Nightly Image" --days 30 --agent
  

Find what nobody is watching

• unwatched - Every backup Backup Radar receives but nobody acts on: inactive, unmapped to ScalePad, failing with no ticket, no PSA company, or warnings counted as success by policy. Unmapped needs the v3 key; the other reasons need the v2 key.

  Use it to answer which backups have no human or ticket behind them before a client finds out.

  bashCopy code
  backup-radar-cli unwatched --reason inactive,ticketless --agent
  

• coverage diff - Compare the devices a backup vendor protects against what Backup Radar monitors and list the gaps in both directions.

  Use it when a vendor console and Backup Radar disagree about what is protected and monitored.

  bashCopy code
  backup-radar-cli coverage diff --devices vendor-devices.json --name-field hostname --agent
  

• stale - Backups with no result in N days, grouped by client, with retire request bodies ready to preview; works from either key's synced data.

  Use it to plan a cleanup before calling backups retire, never instead of the server-side dry run.

  bashCopy code
  backup-radar-cli stale --days 30 --agent
  

Custom ingest

• push - Push flat CSV or JSONL backup results into Backup Radar (v3 key, live write) with local validation and automatic batching under the 10,000-result limit.

  Use it to report results from backup tools Backup Radar cannot parse, from any script or scheduler.

  bashCopy code
  backup-radar-cli push --from results.csv --dry-run
  

Command Reference

backups - Ingest backup results and retire unused backups (v3 key); list, inspect, filter and count backups (v2 key).

• backup-radar-cli backups filters - Returns the available filters, such as tags, companies, statuses, and more (v2 key).
• backup-radar-cli backups get - Returns the backup data for a specific day (v2 key). Uses the Backup Radar API v2 key (BACKUP_RADAR_V2_API_KEY).
• backup-radar-cli backups inactive - Returns inactive backups that are ready to be activated (v2 key).
• backup-radar-cli backups ingest - Accepts a root JSON array of backup entries (v3 key).
• backup-radar-cli backups list - Returns scheduled backups that match the specified filters and are paginated accordingly (v2 key).
• backup-radar-cli backups overview - Returns the counts of policies, backups, servers, and workstations (v2 key).
• backup-radar-cli backups results - Returns all backup results for the given date (v2 key). Uses the Backup Radar API v2 key (BACKUP_RADAR_V2_API_KEY).
• backup-radar-cli backups retire - Retires backups that match the supplied filters (v3 key). Filters are exact (case-insensitive) and combined with AND.
• backup-radar-cli backups retired - Returns backups that have been retired (v2 key). Uses the Backup Radar API v2 key (BACKUP_RADAR_V2_API_KEY).

devices - Get the client's backup devices.

• backup-radar-cli devices - Returns a cursor-paginated list of backup devices whose names match the optional filters (v3 key).

health - Get the client's backup health.

• backup-radar-cli health get - Returns backup health for one client (v3 key).
• backup-radar-cli health list - Returns a cursor-paginated list of clients whose backup health matches the optional filters (v3 key).

check

• backup-radar-cli check - One ranked list of today's failing, silent and at-risk backups, each marked new or ongoing with days in status and open ticket count; uses whichever keys you synced.

coverage

• backup-radar-cli coverage diff - Compare the devices a backup vendor protects against what Backup Radar monitors and list the gaps in both directions.

push

• backup-radar-cli push - Push flat CSV or JSONL backup results into Backup Radar (v3 key, live write) with local validation and automatic batching under the 10,000-result limit.

scorecard

• backup-radar-cli scorecard - In-compliance rate, weekly trend and worst devices for one client, or every client ranked, from up to a year of client health (v3 key); worst devices use synced device history (each sync fetches 90 days; stored days accumulate up to a year).

stale

• backup-radar-cli stale - Backups with no result in N days, grouped by client, with retire request bodies ready to preview; works from either key's synced data.

timeline

• backup-radar-cli timeline - One device's day-by-day backup story merged from both API generations, with tickets, tags and notes; --live adds each day's v2 results (v2 key).

unwatched

• backup-radar-cli unwatched - Every backup Backup Radar receives but nobody acts on: inactive, unmapped to ScalePad, failing with no ticket, no PSA company, or warnings counted as success by policy. Unmapped needs the v3 key; the other reasons need the v2 key.

Freshness Contract

This printed CLI owns bounded freshness only for registered store-backed read command paths. In --data-source auto mode, those paths check sync_state and may run a bounded refresh before reading local data. --data-source local never refreshes. --data-source live reads the API and does not mutate the local store. Set BACKUP_RADAR_NO_AUTO_REFRESH=1 to skip the freshness hook without changing source selection.

Covered paths:

• backup-radar-cli backups list
• backup-radar-cli backups get
• backup-radar-cli backups filters
• backup-radar-cli backups inactive
• backup-radar-cli backups retired
• backup-radar-cli devices
• backup-radar-cli health list
• backup-radar-cli health get

When JSON output uses the generated provenance envelope, freshness metadata appears at meta.freshness. Treat it as current-cache freshness for the covered command path, not a guarantee of complete historical backfill or API-specific enrichment.

Finding the right command

When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:

bashCopy code
backup-radar-cli which "<capability in your own words>"

which resolves a natural-language capability query to the best matching command from this CLI's curated feature index. Exit code 0 means at least one match; exit code 2 means no confident match - fall back to --help or use a narrower query. --json (and other machine formats) keep that exit-2 contract and write {"matches":[]} on stdout so agents can inspect the envelope without treating a miss as success.

Recipes

Morning triage for agents

bashCopy code
backup-radar-cli check --include-at-risk --agent

Ranked failing, silent and at-risk backups with new or ongoing state, ready for an agent to open tickets.

Narrow the device list

bashCopy code
backup-radar-cli devices --all --agent --select br_device_name,client.br_company_name,br_job_name,last_result

Device rows carry long history arrays; select only the fields you need (the list wrapper is already removed).

Find blind spots

bashCopy code
backup-radar-cli unwatched --reason inactive,unmapped,ticketless --agent

One row per backup and reason, plus counts and any reasons skipped because their collection was never synced.

Plan a cleanup

bashCopy code
backup-radar-cli stale --days 45 --agent

Silent backups grouped by client. Add --bodies to print only the retire bodies, then preview one with: stale --days 45 --bodies | head -n 1 | backups retire --stdin (PowerShell: stale --days 45 --bodies | Select-Object -First 1 | backups retire --stdin). Every body has dry_run true.

Vendor coverage gap

bashCopy code
backup-radar-cli coverage diff --devices vendor-devices.json --name-field hostname --agent

Devices the vendor protects that Backup Radar does not monitor, and the reverse.

Auth Setup

Backup Radar has two API generations with two different keys. The v3 commands (health, devices, backups ingest, backups retire, push) use a ScalePad API key from the ScalePad API tab: set BACKUP_RADAR_API_KEY (export on macOS / Linux, $env:BACKUP_RADAR_API_KEY = "..." on Windows) or store it with auth set-token. The v2 commands (backups list, get, results, filters, inactive, retired, overview, and timeline --live) use a separate Backup Radar API key that is read only from the environment: set BACKUP_RADAR_V2_API_KEY the same way. Either key alone works for its own commands, and the local reports use whatever data you synced. doctor probes each configured key against its API (GET /clients/health with the v3 key, GET /backups/overview with the v2 key) and reports valid, rejected or not verified per key. EU tenants set BACKUP_RADAR_BASE_URL=https://eu.api.scalepad.com/backup-radar/v3; that override applies to v3 commands only, because v2 always uses https://api.backupradar.com.

Run backup-radar-cli doctor to verify setup.

Agent Mode

Add --agent to any command. Expands to: --json --compact --no-input --no-color.

Global format flags share one contract on promoted, novel, sync, and --deliver paths:

• --json - one JSON document on stdout (sync progress events go to stderr)
• --compact - keep identity/status/timestamp fields; does not change the document vs stream shape
• --csv / --plain - tabular rows (collection envelopes unwrap to the row array)
• --quiet - one identity value per row, no envelope

The analysis reports (check, unwatched, stale, scorecard, timeline, coverage diff) carry several lists plus a not-synced note, so they take --json, --agent or the human table and refuse --csv, --plain and --quiet with a usage error.

• Pipeable - JSON on stdout, errors on stderr

• Filterable - --select keeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:

  bashCopy code
  backup-radar-cli backups list --agent --select backupId,backupType,companyName
  

• Previewable - --dry-run shows the request without sending; backups retire --dry-run is the exception: it is the API's own preview flag, so the request is sent with dry_run: true (and with --stdin it sets dry_run in the body)

• Offline-friendly - sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available

• Non-interactive - never prompts, every input is a flag

• Live writes - backups ingest, backups retire (without --dry-run) and push are live writes that run immediately and never prompt; preview with push --dry-run or backups retire --dry-run first

Response envelope

Commands that read from the local store or the API wrap output in a provenance envelope:

jsonCopy code
{
  "meta": {"source": "live" | "local", "synced_at": "...", "reason": "..."},
  "results": <data>
}

Parse .results for data and .meta.source to know whether it's live or local. The analysis reports above return their view bare under --json (top-level rows, sources, and so on) and wrapped in this envelope under --agent. A human-readable N results (live) summary is printed to stderr only when stdout is a terminal AND no machine-format flag (--json, --csv, --compact, --quiet, --plain, --select) is set - piped/agent consumers and explicit-format runs get pure JSON on stdout.

Paths and state

Agents should treat the CLI's path resolver as part of the runtime contract:

• Use --home <dir> for one invocation, or set BACKUP_RADAR_HOME=<dir> to relocate all four path kinds under one root.

• Use per-kind env vars only when a specific kind must diverge: BACKUP_RADAR_CONFIG_DIR, BACKUP_RADAR_DATA_DIR, BACKUP_RADAR_STATE_DIR, BACKUP_RADAR_CACHE_DIR.

• Resolution order is per-kind env var, --home, BACKUP_RADAR_HOME, XDG (XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_DATA_HOME, XDG_STATE_HOME, XDG_CACHE_HOME), then platform defaults.

• config contains settings like config.toml and profiles. data contains credentials.toml, data.db, and auth sidecars. state contains persisted queries, jobs, and teach.log. cache contains regenerable HTTP/cache files.

• Stored secrets live in credentials.toml under the data dir. Existing legacy config.toml secrets are read for compatibility and leave config.toml on the first auth write.

• Run backup-radar-cli doctor --fail-on warn to surface path and credential-location warnings. agent-context exposes a schema v4 paths block for agents that need the resolved dirs.

• For MCP, pass relocation through the MCP host config. The MCP binary does not inherit CLI flags:

  jsonCopy code
  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "backup-radar": {
        "command": "backup-radar-mcp",
        "env": {
          "BACKUP_RADAR_HOME": "/srv/backup-radar"
        }
      }
    }
  }
  

Fleet precedence: an inherited per-kind env var overrides an explicit --home for that kind. Use BACKUP_RADAR_HOME or per-kind vars as durable fleet levers, and use --home only for a single invocation. Relocation is not reversible by unsetting env vars; move files manually before clearing BACKUP_RADAR_HOME, or doctor will not find credentials left under the former root.

Automatic learning

This CLI ships a self-capturing learning loop. The CLI does its own bookkeeping: every invocation is journaled locally, a failed flag followed by a corrected retry auto-derives a flag_alias candidate, and a teach on a query family without a playbook auto-synthesizes a playbook_candidate from the session's journal. Your job is judgment only: recall first, act on surfaced candidates, teach the final answer, playbook amend when you observe a correction. You never record failures by hand.

Step 1: recall before any discovery

Before list/search/drill commands on a new user question, pass the question as an argv or MCP tool argument to recall --agent. Do not interpolate user-controlled text into a shell command line.

Quoted recall "<question>" breaks on an apostrophe, which is ordinary English. A quoted heredoc breaks when a body line equals the delimiter, and that delimiter is published in these docs. Write the question with a non-shell file-writing tool, then read it back as data:

bashCopy code
# Write the question verbatim with your file-writing tool (no shell involved).
# Command substitution on a file only ever yields data  -  the shell never
# parses the file's bytes as syntax.
QUERY=$(cat /path/to/question.txt)
backup-radar-cli recall "$QUERY" --agent

Prefer MCP: pass the question as the tool's query argument. "$QUERY" after a file read is argv-safe; putting the question itself in the command text is not.

The response envelope:

jsonCopy code
{
  "query": "...",
  "normalized": "<normalized form>",
  "query_entities": ["..."],
  "found": true | false,
  "match_score": 0.0,
  "results": [
    { "resource_id": "...", "resource_type": "...", "venue": "...",
      "confidence": 2, "entity_match": "exact|partial|unknown",
      "source": "taught|preseed|pattern", "warnings": ["..."] }
  ],
  "mismatches": [ /* only when --debug-mismatches */ ],
  "warnings": [ /* top-level */ ],
  "candidates": [
    { "id": 12, "class": "flag_alias | playbook_candidate",
      "summary": "...", "sightings": 3, "last_seen": "...",
      "rationale": "...",
      "next_action": ["<trial command>", "backup-radar-cli learnings confirm 12"] }
  ],
  "playbook": {
    "query_family": "...",
    "playbook": {
      "steps": [ { "cmd": "<command with {slot} substitution>", "purpose": "..." } ],
      "entity_slots": ["$ENTITY"],
      "expected_tool_calls": 3
    },
    "slots_resolved": { "$ENTITY": { "token": "<live token>", "canonical": "<canonical>" } },
    "notes": "<workarounds + gotchas for this query family>"
  },
  "notes": "<duplicate surface for non-playbook callers>"
}

Empty-store short-circuit: if the store has no learnings, playbooks, or candidates yet (recall finds nothing and learnings list and learnings candidates are both empty), skip recall for the rest of this session instead of taxing every query; resume recall-first once something has been taught.

Step 2: decision tree

Read candidates, playbook, notes, results[0], and warnings in that order:

Copy code
if Candidates present (warnings include "candidates_present"):
    -> candidates are try-then-confirm, never facts. Follow each candidate's
       two-step next_action verbatim: run the trial command first, then run
       `learnings confirm <id>` only after the trial verified the behavior.
       Reject a wrong candidate with `learnings reject <id>`.
    -> NEVER re-teach something recall surfaced as a candidate; confirm or
       reject that candidate instead of teaching a duplicate.
    -> candidates ride alongside playbooks and resource hits, not instead of
       them; continue with the branches below after acting on them.

if Playbook present:
    -> READ Playbook.notes verbatim FIRST (workarounds + gotchas the CLI surface doesn't expose)
    -> replay Playbook.steps in order, substituting Playbook.slots_resolved entries
       for the entity slot tokens. If a step's slot is unresolved, fall back to
       discovery for that step only.
    -> the Playbook's expected_tool_calls is a budget; if you find yourself running
       materially more, record the divergence via `backup-radar-cli playbook amend`
       at end-of-session.

elif Notes present (no Playbook):
    -> read Notes verbatim before any discovery step; they carry known gotchas
       for this query family even when no structured choreography exists yet.

elif Found AND Results[0].EntityMatch == "exact" AND Results[0].Confidence >= 2:
    -> skip discovery; fetch live data for Results[*].ResourceID in parallel

elif Found AND Results[0].EntityMatch == "partial":
    -> candidate hint, NOT a hit; read the resource title to validate before trusting

elif (any row in Mismatches[] when --debug-mismatches was passed):
    -> treat as cold start; the stored learning is for a different entity
       (different canonical resolved from query_entities)

else:  // Found == false, no playbook, no notes
    -> cold start; run discovery normally; teach the answer afterward (Step 4).
       If the family has no playbook yet, that teach auto-synthesizes a
       playbook candidate from this session's journal - you do not need to
       record one by hand.

Playbook and Notes are orthogonal to the per-resource path. A recall response can carry both a Playbook AND a Results[] hit - use both: the Playbook tells you which choreography to run; the resource hits short-circuit specific steps. Default to skipping mismatches; pass --debug-mismatches only when investigating cold-start surprises.

Candidate judgment details: learnings confirm <id> prints the candidate's full payload before materializing it - check that the printed payload matches the behavior you verified. learnings reject <id> tombstones the derivation signature so the same candidate does not resurface. The envelope carries only the few candidates worth acting on now; backup-radar-cli learnings candidates lists the full open set.

Graceful degradation: if learnings confirm is an unknown command, you are driving an older binary - ignore the candidates guidance and follow the rest of the protocol.

Step 3: always read warnings

• low_confidence: row exists at confidence<2. Treat as a hint, not a skip-discovery hit.
• resource_not_in_store: the local store doesn't have the resource the learning points at. The match validator couldn't classify entities - direct-fetch and re-evaluate.
• cross_alias_match (per-result): the row was taught under a different alias and matched the live query's canonical via entity_lookups (e.g., a "USA" teach satisfying a "United States" recall). Trust the resource_id.
• similar_shape_different_entity:<canonical> (top-level): a structurally matching row exists but its canonical entity differs from the live query's. Treated as cold start; the warning carries the conflicting canonical as a hint, but the row is NOT promoted into Results.
• ambiguous_alias (top-level): a single query entity resolved to multiple canonicals (e.g., "DC" → DC01 + DC02). Surface the ambiguity from context before committing to a resource.
• candidates_present (top-level): the envelope carries a candidates section. Handle it via the candidates branch in Step 2 before anything else.
• lookup_refresh_available (top-level): an entity in the query has no lookup row yet, but synced data could provide one. Run backup-radar-cli sync to refresh entity lookups.
• Top-level no_learnings_for_query_family: the table had no rows above the Jaccard floor. Pure cold start.

Step 4: teach & after finalizing your response - always

Teaching is unconditional. After resolving a query the store could not answer, background-teach the final resource mapping - no call-count threshold, no judging whether it was "worth" learning. The teach is the anchor of the loop: it triggers playbook synthesis for a family without a playbook, and same-referent phrasings fold into one family so near-duplicate teaches do not fragment the store. Fire it after assembling your user-facing response but BEFORE emitting it, with a shell & so the call returns immediately. Pass the query the same way as recall - argv/MCP, or file-then-$QUERY. Do not splice the question into the command text:

bashCopy code
QUERY=$(cat /path/to/question.txt)
backup-radar-cli teach --query "$QUERY" --resource-type <type> --resource <id1> --resource <id2>
# (append shell `&` to background it)

Silent on success. Errors only land in teach.log under the resolved state dir. Teach the most specific resource - if the user asked a broad question and you walked through parent records to find the specific answer, teach the leaf id, not the parent. The CLI uses seeded entity_lookups for cross-alias resolution at recall time, so a teach under one alias (e.g., "not reporting") satisfies future queries under another alias (e.g., "no results") automatically.

PII rule: teach the structural question with identifiers stripped - never include names, emails, phone numbers, account ids, or other personal identifiers in taught queries or notes. The CLI scans teach queries for obvious email/phone shapes and warns, but does not block; strip before teaching rather than relying on the warning.

Step 5: playbooks - optional flags, automatic synthesis

You do not need to decide whether a session "deserves" a playbook: a teach on a family without one auto-synthesizes a playbook_candidate from the session's journal, and the next session judges it via confirm/reject. Attach explicit playbook flags only when you already hold choreography worth recording verbatim - workarounds the CLI didn't surface (silently-dropped flags, undocumented params, pagination tricks, payload gotchas). Prefer the integrated one-call form - record the resource learning and the playbook in the same teach invocation:

bashCopy code
# Common case: record both the resource learning AND the playbook in one call.
QUERY=$(cat /path/to/question.txt)
backup-radar-cli teach \
  --query "$QUERY" \
  --resource-type <type> \
  --resource <id> \
  --playbook-file ~/playbooks/<shape>.json \
  --playbook-notes-file ~/playbooks/<shape>-notes.md
# (append shell `&` to background it)

# Alternate: playbook-only (no resource to record alongside).
QUERY=$(cat /path/to/question.txt)
backup-radar-cli teach-playbook \
  --query "$QUERY" \
  --playbook-file ~/playbooks/<shape>.json \
  --notes-file ~/playbooks/<shape>-notes.md

Playbook files are JSON with steps, entity_slots, expected_tool_calls. Notes files are markdown carrying the gotchas verbatim. File-free callers (MCP-only agents) pass the same content inline: --playbook-json and --playbook-notes on the integrated teach form, --playbook-json and --notes on teach-playbook. On the integrated teach form, the playbook flags are optional - omit them entirely for a resource-only teach. On the standalone teach-playbook form, at least one of the playbook and notes flags must be set; both empty is rejected. Playbooks are keyed on the structural query family (entities stripped) so a recipe taught from one entity-shaped query applies to every other query of the same shape, with slots_resolved binding the live query's canonical at recall time.

When you DO find a playbook on a future recall, treat it as ground truth: replay the steps with slots_resolved substitutions, skip the discovery that the choreography already documents, and read notes before any step.

Step 6: playbook amend & when your debug response identifies a correction

If your debug-protocol response identifies a concrete correction the notes or playbook should know - a workaround, an undocumented endpoint shape, a stale field name, observed schema drift, an empty-payload fallback - fire playbook amend BEFORE emitting your user-facing response. Same fire-and-forget posture as teach. Pass the query and note as argv/MCP arguments, or write each with a non-shell file tool and read them back (QUERY=$(cat ...), NOTE=$(cat ...)). Do not interpolate either string into the command text:

bashCopy code
QUERY=$(cat /path/to/question.txt)
NOTE=$(cat /path/to/note.txt)
backup-radar-cli playbook amend \
  --query "$QUERY" \
  --add-note "$NOTE"
# (append shell `&` to background it)

What counts as worth amending: a behavior you OBSERVED this session that future-you would benefit from knowing. Examples worth amending:

• A workaround for a CLI surface that silently drops or misorders a flag.
• An undocumented endpoint shape (response wrapped in {meta, results}, payload nested two levels deeper than the docs claim).
• Observed schema drift (a field renamed, an index that shifted between API versions, a category label that the API now returns lower-cased).

What does NOT belong in notes:

• The year-specific or entity-specific answer to the user's question. That's the response, not a learning.
• Per-client / per-device / per-row data the playbook already retrieves at runtime.
• Statements that paraphrase what the existing notes already say.

The amend command appends to the family's existing notes with a timestamped marker ([amend YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MMZ]: <text>). Multiple amends accumulate; the audit trail is visible. If no playbook exists yet for the family, amend creates a notes-only one (so cold-start corrections still land).

PII discipline for amend notes

playbook amend notes are designed to potentially flow upstream as shared knowledge in future versions of the Printing Press. Keep them clean of user-identifying content so the upstream-contribution path stays open without retroactive scrubbing:

• Do NOT embed paths to user filesystems, personal API keys or tokens, user email addresses, user GitHub handles, or specific query histories tied to a single user.
• Acceptable: endpoint shapes, undocumented field names, API gotchas, observed schema drift, workarounds for CLI surfaces, generalizable pagination or retry tactics.

If a correction is only meaningful with user-specific context, it belongs in a personal note, not in the playbook amend.

Measuring the loop

backup-radar-cli learnings stats reports recall hit rate, teach-to-reuse, playbook resolution rate, and candidate confirm/reject counts from the local learn_events table. Rates are null until they have a denominator; everything stays on this machine. Use it to check whether the loop is earning its keep for this CLI.

Disabling learning

• --no-learn on a single command short-circuits both recall and the teach write path. Use for deterministic agent flows or tests that must not be affected by accumulated learnings.
• BACKUP_RADAR_NO_LEARN=true in the environment globally disables the pipeline.

Agent Feedback

When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:

Copy code
backup-radar-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
backup-radar-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
Get-Content notes.txt | backup-radar-cli feedback --stdin   # PowerShell
backup-radar-cli feedback list --json --limit 10

Entries are stored locally as feedback.jsonl under the resolved data dir. They are never POSTed unless BACKUP_RADAR_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or BACKUP_RADAR_FEEDBACK_AUTO_SEND=true. Default behavior is local-only.

Write what surprised you, not a bug report. Short, specific, one line: that is the part that compounds.

Output Delivery

Every command except completion accepts --deliver <sink> (redirect a completion script to a file instead; the --help and --version flags print to stdout only, while the help and version commands deliver). profile save validates a --deliver sink and records it for later --profile runs rather than delivering its own confirmation. The output goes to the named sink in addition to (or instead of) stdout, so agents can route command results without hand-piping. Three sinks are supported:

Unknown schemes are refused with a structured error naming the supported set. Webhook failures return non-zero and log the URL + HTTP status on stderr.

Named Profiles

A profile is a saved set of flag values, reused across invocations. Use it when a scheduled or recurring agent reuses the same saved flags while providing different input each run.

Copy code
backup-radar-cli profile save "briefing" --json
backup-radar-cli --profile "briefing" backups list
backup-radar-cli profile list --json
backup-radar-cli profile show "briefing"
backup-radar-cli profile delete "briefing" --yes

Explicit flags always win over profile values; profile values win over defaults. agent-context lists all available profiles under available_profiles so introspecting agents discover them at runtime.

Exit Codes

Argument Parsing

Parse $ARGUMENTS:

1. Empty, help, or --help → show backup-radar-cli --help output
2. Starts with install → ends with mcp → MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above
3. Anything else → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with --agent)

MCP Server Installation

1. Install the MCP binary (run the install script from the Prerequisites section, or see mcp-install.md for per-agent wire-up).
2. Register with Claude Code:

   bashCopy code
   claude mcp add backup-radar-mcp --env BACKUP_RADAR_API_KEY=<scalepad-key> --env BACKUP_RADAR_V2_API_KEY=<v2-key> -- backup-radar-mcp
   

3. Verify: claude mcp list

Direct Use

1. Check if installed: which backup-radar-cli (macOS / Linux) or Get-Command backup-radar-cli (Windows PowerShell) If not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill).
2. Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.
3. Execute with the --agent flag:

   bashCopy code
   backup-radar-cli check --include-at-risk --agent
   

4. If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help, e.g. backup-radar-cli backups --help.