Shipback SFTP

SFTP deploys to shared hosting (cPanel, Plesk, any SFTP host) that an AI agent can undo: every deploy backs up the files it replaces on the server, and restore puts them back but refuses if a live file was edited since.

GitHub

Documentation

Shipback SFTP

Let the agent deploy. Keep the undo.

It's late, and the agent says "Deployed ✓". Then the client's contact form is gone. The agent overwrote a file someone had fixed by hand in cPanel last week, and shared hosting has no git revert.

Shipback deploys a folder to any SFTP host: cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, a plain VPS. Every deploy can be undone with one command. You can run it yourself, script it, or hand it to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client.

Backup before every overwrite. The server's copy of each file a deploy replaces is saved into _backup-<time>/ on the server, before the upload starts.
One-command undo. --restore puts those files back and removes the files that deploy added.
It won't undo over a live edit. If someone changed a file on the server after the deploy, restore stops and names the file. Nothing is touched unless you pass --force, and even then the edited copy is backed up first.
Restores can be undone too. A restore backs up what it replaces, the same way a deploy does.
Safe for agents. The MCP server has no switch to delete server files or skip the backup. A deploy only runs the exact plan the agent previewed: if a file changed in between, it refuses.
Spots the drift. --pull --dry-run shows what changed on the server since your last deploy, so edits made live in cPanel don't get overwritten by accident.

No git or SSH shell is needed on the server, just SFTP. It needs Node 18+. The tests run on Windows, macOS and Linux with Node 18, 20 and 22 on every push. Passwords are kept in the OS keychain and never pass through the model.

It has run in production. The deploy engine underneath has shipped aldo.today 235 times since September 2026 (2,907 files to a cPanel host). Restore and the MCP server are new in 0.1.

Quick start

npm install -g shipback-sftp          # installs the shipback and shipback-mcp commands
cd ~/sites                            # any folder with a sites.json in it (format below)
shipback mysite --dry-run             # see the plan; asks for the password once and stores it
shipback mysite                       # deploy
shipback mysite --restore             # changed your mind? undo it

No global install? npx -p shipback-sftp shipback mysite --dry-run works the same way. --sites <file> points at a sites.json in another folder.

From source: git clone https://github.com/aldohushi1-stack/shipback-sftp.git, npm install, then node bin/cli.js wherever these docs say shipback.

sites.json, one entry per site:

{
  "sites": [
    {
      "name": "mysite",
      "host": "server123.example-host.com",
      "port": 22,
      "username": "cpaneluser",
      "remoteRoot": "/home/cpaneluser/public_html",
      "localDir": "/Users/you/sites/mysite",
      "ignore": ["drafts/", "*.psd"]
    }
  ]
}

Many shared hosts run SFTP on their own port rather than 22 (check SSH Access in your control panel), and some only accept connections from allow-listed IPs. If a connection times out, check those two first. Use "privateKeyPath" instead of a password if your host has your key.

Commands

shipback <site> --dry-run                 # what a deploy would upload
shipback <site>                           # deploy: backup, upload, record
shipback <site> --local <folder>          # deploy a different folder than localDir
shipback <site> --pull --dry-run          # what changed on the server since the last deploy?
shipback <site> --pull                    # bring those changes down (local copies backed up first)
shipback <site> --backups                 # list backups: what each run overwrote, added, deleted
shipback <site> --restore --dry-run       # what an undo of the latest deploy would do
shipback <site> --restore [<backup>]      # undo it (or name an older _backup-… folder)
shipback <site> --prune --keep 10         # tidy old backups; refuses any holding the only copy of a file
shipback --history [site]                 # what went up, when, from where

Add --json to any command for machine-readable output. A refused restore exits with code 4.

--mirror (delete server files that aren't in the local folder) and --no-backup exist for humans who know they want them. The agent tools don't offer them, and the guard hook blocks Claude from typing them.

How the undo works

Each deploy writes _backup-YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM/ in the remote root. It holds:

the server's copy of every file the deploy overwrote or deleted
.backup.json, a record of what the deploy added, and a SHA-256 of every file it left on the server

--restore reads that record and checks each live file first:

Live file now	Restore does
exactly what the deploy uploaded	puts the old copy back (or removes it, if the deploy added it)
already the old copy	nothing; it counts as already right
different from both	conflict: stops, names the file, changes nothing (`--force` overrides)

Before writing anything, restore saves the current live files into a new _backup-… folder with its own record, so --restore on that folder takes you forward again. It also clears the restored paths from .deploy-manifest.json, so the next deploy compares them by content instead of trusting stale hashes.

Backup folders are skipped by deploys and pulls, and are never deleted except by --prune.

Use it from an AI agent (MCP)

shipback-mcp (bin/mcp.js) is an MCP server over stdio.

Claude Code

claude mcp add shipback-sftp -- npx -y -p shipback-sftp shipback-mcp --sites /path/to/sites.json

Cursor, Claude Desktop, and others (mcp.json / claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "shipback-sftp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "-p", "shipback-sftp", "shipback-mcp", "--sites", "/path/to/sites.json"]
    }
  }
}

On Windows, if the client can't start npx, use "command": "cmd" with "/c", "npx" at the front of args. After a global install, "command": "shipback-mcp" works too, and from a clone it's node with bin/mcp.js as the first arg.

Run any CLI command for a site once first (for example shipback mysite --backups). That stores the password in the OS keychain, where the MCP server reads it. The model never sees it. For CI you can set SFTP_PASSWORD in the server's environment instead.

Tool	Does
`list_sites`	the configured sites (no passwords)
`preview_deploy`	what would upload; returns a `planId`
`deploy`	uploads that plan; refuses if anything changed since the preview
`check_server_changes`	files edited or added on the live server since the last deploy
`pull`	brings those down into the local folder (local copies backed up)
`list_backups`	backups, newest first, with what each run changed
`preview_restore`	what an undo would put back and remove, plus any conflicts; returns a `planId`
`restore`	runs that undo; refuses on conflicts unless `force`
`history`	recent deploys, pulls and restores

What the tools leave out is deliberate: there is no mirror/delete, no way to skip the backup, and no pruning of backups.

Agents without a shell: the drop-box queue

Some agent setups can write files but can't run commands. While the local app is running (npm start, or start.bat on Windows), anything that can write a file can queue a job:

queue/<name>.request.json   { "action": "deploy", "site": "mysite", "dryRun": true, "note": "new homepage" }
queue/<name>.result.json    ← written when it finishes, with a .log.txt beside it

Actions: deploy, preview, pull, restore, backups, prune.

The local app

npm start opens a small UI on http://127.0.0.1:4646: add sites, preview, deploy, pull, drag in one-off uploads, browse the server, and see history. It only answers requests from your own machine.

Claude Code guard hook

If Claude also runs the CLI directly, add bin/claude-guard.js as a PreToolUse hook. It blocks --mirror and --no-backup in shell commands, queue files and API calls, and tells Claude why. You can still run them yourself in a terminal. After npm install -g shipback-sftp, the file is in the folder npm root -g prints, under shipback-sftp/bin/.

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "Bash|PowerShell|Write|Edit|MultiEdit",
        "hooks": [{ "type": "command", "command": "node /path/to/shipback-sftp/bin/claude-guard.js" }]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Tests

npm test

The suite uses node:test and needs no network. Deploy, restore, the CLI and the MCP server are each also exercised end to end against a real SFTP server started inside the test run.

Limits

It compares by size and SHA-256. The first deploy to a site that already has files reads the server copies of any same-size files to compare them.
Backups live on the same server as the site. They protect against bad deploys, not against losing the hosting account. Keep your host's own backups too.
Files over 8 MB with the same size on both sides are assumed unchanged when there is no manifest hash to compare.

License

Runs aldo.today. Made at BlueprintAU.