Guide: Easy Set Up For Automatic Roam Backups

Important notice:

Requirements:

• A Roam Research account and database (also called "graph")

• A GitHub account (You can sign up for free if you don't already have one.)

Steps Overview:

1. Create a GitHub repository for your Roam backup.

2. In the Secrets settings, add your Roam database name, email, and password.

3. Create an action and copy/paste some code.

Result:

• Your Roam database will be backed up into GitHub automatically every hour.

Step 1: Create a GitHub repository

1. Once you have signed into GitHub, click New under Repositories.

2. Type in a repository name, such as roam-backup

3. Select Private. (If you select Public, anyone can access your backups. You may consider this if your Roam database is public.)

4. Check Initialize this repository with a README.

5. Click Create repository.

Step 2: Add Secrets settings

1. Go to Settings, then Secrets.

2. Click New secret.

3. Under Name, type or copy/paste:
ROAMRESEARCH_DATABASE

4. Under Value, put in the name of your Roam graph. (You can find a list of your graph names on the Graphs and Settings page)

5. Repeat for the following names and values:
ROAMRESEARCH_USER (Roam account email address)
ROAMRESEARCH_PASSWORD (Roam account password)

Step 3: Add Action

1. Go to Actions (in the top bar, not in the settings)

2. Click set up a workflow yourself →

3. Leave alone the name main.yml

4. Under Edit new file, delete the code and copy/paste the code below.

5. Click Start commit, then Commit new file.

name: "Roam Research backup"

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  schedule:
    -   cron: "0 * * * *"

jobs:
  backup:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Backup
    timeout-minutes: 15
    steps:
      -   uses: actions/checkout@v2
      -   name: Set up Python 3.8
          uses: actions/setup-python@v1
          with:
            python-version: 3.8

      -   name: Setup dependencies
          run: |
            pip install git+https://github.com/MatthieuBizien/roam-to-git.git@master
      -   name: Run backup
          run: roam-to-git --skip-git . --formats json markdown formatted edn
          env:
            ROAMRESEARCH_USER: ${{ secrets.ROAMRESEARCH_USER }}
            ROAMRESEARCH_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.ROAMRESEARCH_PASSWORD }}
            ROAMRESEARCH_DATABASE: ${{ secrets.ROAMRESEARCH_DATABASE }}

      -   name: Commit changes
          uses: elstudio/actions-js-build/commit@v3
          with:
            commitMessage: Automated snapshot

And that's it!

Check the progress

1. To check the progress of the first run, go back to Actions.

2. Under All Workflows, click the 3 dots on the first result, then click View workflow file.(If there are no results, try refreshing the page after several seconds.)

3. Under Roam Research backup, click Backup.

• formatted (markdown files that re-create Roam's structure within GitHub, with links and backlinks)

• json (the main json file which you can import back into Roam)

• markdown (raw text of each page)

• using a Google account

• having a page title that is too long

• starting a page title with a backslash /