Package Backup & Drift Viewer

Backup installed packages from multiple package managers to JSON/SQLite, and visualize package drift between machines with a NiceGUI web interface.

Features

• Multi-platform package collection: Works on macOS and Linux
• Multiple package managers: brew, apt, snap, flatpak, pip, npm, stew, zb
• SQLite storage: Local database for fast queries
• GitHub sync: Push backups to a shared repo
• Drift visualization: NiceGUI web UI showing package differences
• Install commands: Generate commands to sync packages between machines
• Unified CLI: Single box-dump command with subcommands

Supported Package Managers

Installation

Install as CLI tool (recommended)

# Using uv (recommended)
uv tool install .

# Or using pipx
pipx install .

This installs the box-dump command globally.

Development Install

# Install with all dependencies
uv pip install -e . --system --break-system-packages

# Or with pip
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Usage

Backup Command

# Basic backup to default cache (~/.cache/box_dump)
box-dump backup

# Backup to custom directory (useful for git versioning)
box-dump backup --path ~/projects/package-backups

# Backup and push to GitHub
box-dump backup --push --repo "your-username/package-backups"

# Skip SQLite export
box-dump backup --no-sqlite

Viewer Command

# Run the web UI (default port 8080)
box-dump viewer

# Custom port
box-dump viewer --port 3000

Then open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

Run Without Installation

# Using uv
uv run -m box_dump.cli backup
uv run -m box_dump.cli viewer

# Or with specific subcommand
uv run -m box_dump.cli backup --path ~/my-packages

JSON Output Format

Files are named {hostname}_{package_manager}.json:

[
  {"name": "neovim", "version": "0.9.5"},
  {"name": "fish", "version": "3.6.0"},
  {"name": "git", "version": "2.43.0"}
]

GitHub Setup

1. Create a new GitHub repository
2. Run backup with --push --repo "your-username/repo-name"
3. Each machine backs up to its own JSON files in the repo

Configuration

Default Paths

• JSON cache: ~/.cache/box_dump/
• SQLite database: ~/.local/share/package-backup/packages.db
• Git repo clone: ~/.cache/package-backup/

Override Output Directory

Use --path to specify a custom output directory (e.g., a git-initialized folder):

box-dump backup --path ~/projects/package-backups --push

Development

# Install dev dependencies
uv pip install -e ".[dev]" --system --break-system-packages

# Run tests
pytest

# Lint
ruff check .

License

MIT