Plans

A plan defines what to back up, where to store it, and when to run. Plans are the core scheduling unit in Valvet.

Creating a Plan

Navigate to Plans → Create Plan or use the API. A plan requires:

Field	Required	Description
Name	Yes	Human-readable name
Node	Yes	Target node to run the backup on
Repository	Yes	Destination restic repository
Paths	Yes	One or more directories to back up
Schedule	No	Cron expression for automatic runs
Excludes	No	Glob patterns to skip
Retention	No	Snapshot retention policy
Pre-hooks	No	Commands to run before backup
Post-hooks	No	Commands to run after backup

Schedule

Schedules use standard 5-field cron expressions:

┌───────── minute (0-59)
│ ┌─────── hour (0-23)
│ │ ┌───── day of month (1-31)
│ │ │ ┌─── month (1-12)
│ │ │ │ ┌─ day of week (0-7, 0 and 7 = Sunday)
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * *

Examples:

• 0 2 * * * — Every day at 2:00 AM
• 0 */6 * * * — Every 6 hours
• 30 1 * * 0 — Every Sunday at 1:30 AM
• 0 3 1 * * — First of every month at 3:00 AM

Plans without a schedule can only be triggered manually via the “Run Now” button.

Retention Policy

Retention defines how many snapshots to keep. Restic’s forget command is run after each backup with the configured policy:

Field	Example	Meaning
Keep Last	7	Keep the 7 most recent snapshots
Keep Daily	7	Keep one snapshot per day for 7 days
Keep Weekly	4	Keep one per week for 4 weeks
Keep Monthly	12	Keep one per month for 12 months
Keep Yearly	2	Keep one per year for 2 years

Hooks

Pre-hooks run before the backup starts, post-hooks run after (regardless of success or failure). Common uses:

• Pre-hook: Database dump, stop a service, create a consistent snapshot
• Post-hook: Restart a service, send a notification, clean up temp files

Hooks are shell commands executed on the node.

Plan Duplication

You can duplicate an existing plan from the plan detail page. This creates a copy with all the same settings, ready to be modified (useful for setting up similar backups on different nodes).