Practical Scripts: backup, deploy, daily-check

The shape of a real-world shell script

Production-grade shell scripts share a structure: defensive header, config block, helper functions, main flow, exit-time cleanup. Below are three patterns you can copy and adapt.

backup.sh — rsync to dated archive

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
src="${1:-$HOME}"
dest="${BACKUP_ROOT:-/Volumes/backup}/$(date +%Y/%m/%d)"
mkdir -p "$dest"
rsync -avzP --delete --exclude='.cache' "$src/" "$dest/"
echo "backup at $dest"

deploy.sh — test then push

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
log() { printf '%(%H:%M:%S)T %s\n' -1 "$*"; }
trap 'log "deploy failed at line $LINENO"' ERR
log 'running tests'
./test.sh
log 'pushing'
git push origin main
log 'done'

daily-check.sh — health gate

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
fail=0
checks=(
  'curl -sSf https://api.example/health'
  'pgrep -f my-worker'
  'df -P / | awk "NR==2 && \$5+0 < 90"'
)
for c in "${checks[@]}"; do
  if eval "$c" >/dev/null; then
    echo "✔ $c"
  else
    echo "✘ $c"
    fail=1
  fi
done
exit "$fail"

Pippa pattern

The pippa-working-scripts directory in cwkPippa follows the same shape: defensive header, lifecycle comment (# @pippa: persistent | purpose), small purpose-named files instead of date-prefixed scratch. Treat it as your reference for ergonomic shell scripts in 2026.