File Watcher & Auto-Backup CLI

A command-line tool that monitors specified files and creates backups whenever changes are detected with versioning support.

Features

• Monitor multiple files for changes
• Timestamped backups with precise microsecond resolution
• Versioning support to keep track of multiple changes
• Miminal delay between backups to avoid excessive file creation
• Recursive directory monitoring
• Worker pool - process multiple files concurrently
• Ignoring specific files or directories (e.g., .tmp, .DS_Store, .git)
• Retry mechanism for robustness
• Color-coded terminal output for better readability

Installation

Prerequisites

• Go 1.21 of higher

Steps

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/cyprian/file-watcher-backup
    cd file-watcher-backup

2. Build the project:

   go mod download
   go build -o file-watcher

3. (Optional) Move the binary to global path:

   mv file-watcher /usr/local/bin/

Usage

./file-watcher --source ./my-project --backup ./backups

Or with all options:

./file-watcher \
  --source ./my-project \
  --backup ./backups \
  --versions 5 \
  --interval 10s

Command-Line Options

• --source (string, required): Path to the source file or directory to monitor.
• --backup (string, required): Path to the backup directory where backups will be stored.
• --versions (int, default: 3): Number of backup versions to keep for each file.
• --interval (duration, default: 5s): Minimum interval between backups.

Todo list

• Configure delay time
• Add tests
• Add command to load ignoring paths or files from a file or multiple arguments (e.g., --ignore .tmp .DS_Store .git)
• Add support for backup compression
• Add performance benchmarks