umairmsm/wp-operate

Stage 8: Operate

Goal: the site survives a lost laptop, a dead server, a bad update and a change of machine, and nobody has to remember how.

Steps

1. Backups.
   • Run scripts/backup.sh weekly, and before risky work. It packs the DB, uploads, every git branch and stash, and the Claude memory.
   • Use --encrypt before the zip leaves the machine, and keep one copy off it.
   • Live: the host's daily backups, plus the dumps the deploy and content scripts take.
2. Write down where everything lives in the project's docs/reference/DISASTER_RECOVERY.md, section 0. Include the photo originals folder: it is not in git.
3. Restore drill. Restore once per quarter onto a spare machine or a fresh DDEV project, time it, and log it in §5. A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a backup.
4. Credentials: every secret has a row in CREDENTIALS_INVENTORY.md (name, where it lives, who has it, when it was rotated). Rotate anything an agent has seen.
5. Routines: weekly, monthly and yearly checks, the update policy and alerts in docs/reference/OPERATIONS.md. Plugin updates go to staging first.
6. More than one machine? Follow references/multi-machine.md:
   • docs/team/BRIDGE.md holds roles, rules and the handoff log;
   • scripts/workstation-doctor.sh checks parity;
   • scripts/make-state-bundle.sh carries the git-ignored config, encrypted.

Gate (tick in SITE_STATUS.md)

• Backups scheduled, with an off-machine copy
• Restore drill done (date, minutes)
• Update and alert routines written in OPERATIONS.md

Lessons

• The backup script once pointed at the wrong Claude memory folder. The sessions ran from the parent folder, so the memory lived under a different path. The script derives the path but accepts CLAUDE_MEM= for this case.
• A cloud build box had a branch and stashes that existed nowhere else, and the box could not push. Pull them out with git bundle over ssh before the box stops or is deleted.
• Visual baselines made on one OS fail on another. Keep them in the pinned Docker image.
• A free plan or credit that ends on a date is a deadline for an exit drill: a week before, prove you can rebuild on the next machine from git + the state bundle + a backup.