Backup & Restore

Graphmind provides a portable snapshot format (.sgsnap) for exporting and importing graph data. Snapshots are gzip-compressed JSON-lines files containing all nodes and edges with their properties.

Export a Snapshot

HTTP API

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/snapshot/export \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"graph": "default"}' \
  --output backup.sgsnap

The response body is the binary snapshot file. The graph field is optional (defaults to "default").

What is in the file

The .sgsnap format:

• Line 0: Header with metadata (version, node count, edge count, labels, edge types)
• Lines 1..N: Node records (ID, labels, properties)
• Lines N+1..M: Edge records (source, target, type, properties)

The file is gzip-compressed, so it is typically much smaller than the in-memory representation.

Import a Snapshot

HTTP API

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/snapshot/import \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/octet-stream' \
  --data-binary @backup.sgsnap

Response:

{
  "status": "ok",
  "nodes_imported": 1042,
  "edges_imported": 3891
}

On import, node IDs are remapped to avoid collisions with existing data.

Persistence vs. Snapshots

Graphmind has two data durability mechanisms:

Feature	RocksDB Persistence	Snapshots (.sgsnap)
Automatic	Yes (on every write)	No (manual export)
Portable	No (tied to data directory)	Yes (single file)
Includes all tenants	Yes	One tenant per export
Use case	Crash recovery	Backup, migration, sharing

RocksDB Persistence

When Graphmind starts, it automatically recovers data from its data directory (default ./graphmind_data). This happens transparently -- no manual steps required.

To ensure persistence across Docker container restarts, mount a volume:

docker run -v graphmind_data:/data fabischk/graphmind:latest

Snapshots

Snapshots are for explicit backup/restore, migrating data between servers, or sharing datasets. They capture a point-in-time copy of a single graph namespace.

Scheduling Backups

Use cron or any scheduler to automate snapshot exports:

# Backup every night at 2 AM
0 2 * * * curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/snapshot/export \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"graph": "default"}' \
  --output /backups/graphmind-$(date +\%Y\%m\%d).sgsnap

Add cleanup to remove old backups:

# Keep last 30 days of backups
0 3 * * * find /backups -name "graphmind-*.sgsnap" -mtime +30 -delete

Migration Between Servers

Export from source, import to destination:

# On source server
curl -X POST http://source:8080/api/snapshot/export \
  -d '{"graph": "production"}' --output migration.sgsnap

# On destination server
curl -X POST http://destination:8080/api/snapshot/import \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/octet-stream' \
  --data-binary @migration.sgsnap