Backing Up Your System

Your operating system lives on your computer. If you only use one machine and never worry about backups, it works fine exactly as it is.

You need this section if you want to work from a second computer, protect your work against a dead machine, or move to a new one without starting over.

What you need

A GitHub account — free
Git installed — check with git --version
GitHub CLI — check with gh --version

Install GitHub CLI if needed:

Windows, in PowerShell: winget install GitHub.cli — then close and reopen PowerShell. Mac, in Terminal: brew install gh

Authenticate once:

gh auth login

Choose GitHub.com, choose HTTPS, follow the prompts.

Create the private repository

Navigate to your project folder:

cd "path/to/your/project/folder"

Then create and push in one command:

gh repo create my-business-os --private --source=. --push

Replace my-business-os with whatever you want to call it. This creates the private repo, sets it as your remote, and pushes everything.

Verify: go to GitHub. You should see the repository with a lock icon — that confirms it is private. Check this. It is the one step where a mistake actually matters.

Save your work regularly

The easy way — in Claude Code, say: “Save my current work to GitHub.” It stages, commits with a description of what changed, and pushes.

By hand:

git add -A
git commit -m "Completed weekly review, updated constraints"
git push

How often? At minimum, at the end of any session where you changed something. The session summary is a natural save point.