Show HN: Shipback – SFTP deploys your AI agent can undo

Developer aldohushi1-stack released Shipback 0.1, an open-source Node 18+ command-line tool and MCP server that deploys a folder to any SFTP host — cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin or a plain VPS — and backs up every file it overwrites into a `_backup-<time>/` directory on the server so each deploy can be undone with a single `--restore` command. Shipback refuses to restore over a file edited on the server after the deploy unless `--force` is passed, and its MCP server, usable from Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client, has no switch to delete server files or skip the backup. The author says the underlying deploy engine has shipped aldo.today 235 times since September 2026, covering 2,907 files to a cPanel host, while restore and the MCP server are new in version 0.1.

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 https://aldo.today 235 times since September 2026 2,907 files to a cPanel host . Restore and the MCP server are new in 0.1. 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. 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 claude-code-guard-hook blocks Claude from typing them. 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 . 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. 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 . 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. 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" } } } } 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. - 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. MIT © 2026 Aldo Hushi Runs aldo.today. Made at BlueprintAU https://blueprintau.com .