AI coding tools are great, but there's a non-zero chance one of them nukes your .git folder someday. Scheduled backups work, but I wanted something that just happens automatically — so I set up a bare repository on a separate drive that syncs on every commit via a post-commit hook. Here's how. (macOS, but Linux is identical.)
Step 1: Create the bare repository
Pick somewhere outside your project — an external drive works well.
mkdir -p /path/to/backup/project.git
cd /path/to/backup/project.git
git init --bare
A bare repo stores only history, no working files. Same format GitHub uses internally.
Step 2: Register it as a remote
cd ~/path/to/project
git remote add backup /path/to/backup/project.git
# Initial push (check your branch name first)
git branch --show-current
git push backup <branch-name>
# Verify
git ls-remote backup
Step 3: Add the post-commit hook
touch .git/hooks/post-commit
chmod +x .git/hooks/post-commit
.git/hooks/post-commit:
#!/bin/sh
current_branch=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)
git push backup "$current_branch" --quiet >/dev/null 2>&1 &
The & runs it in the background so commits don't feel any slower.
Verifying it works
touch backup_test.txt
git add backup_test.txt
git commit -m "test: post-commit hook"
Then compare hashes:
git log --oneline -1
git ls-remote backup
If main points to the same hash in both, you're good. Clean up:
git rm backup_test.txt
git commit -m "chore: remove test file"
Recovery
If only .git was deleted (files intact):
cd /path/to/project
git init
git remote add backup /path/to/backup/project.git
git fetch backup
git branch -r # confirm branch name
git reset --mixed backup/<branch-name>
git status # commit any remaining diff
If the whole folder is gone:
git clone /path/to/backup/project.git my_project
In both cases, re-add the post-commit hook afterward since .git/hooks/ isn't tracked by Git.
That's it. A bit of setup, but once it's running you don't think about it again.
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