Keep using Photos.app like you always do. Attic quietly backs up your originals and edits to an S3 bucket you control. One-way, append-only.
Pre-flight permission check before backup starts
Spawn ladder with an empty UUID list before processing any assets to
verify Photos and Automation permissions are available. If the check
fails, abort immediately with actionable instructions instead of
waiting until the first batch.
+37
+25
cli/src/commands/backup.ts
+25
cli/src/commands/backup.ts
···
75
75
const log = options.quiet ? () => {} : console.log.bind(console);
76
76
const logger = options.logger;
77
77
78
+
// Pre-flight: verify ladder has required permissions before doing any work
79
+
if (exporter.checkPermissions) {
80
+
try {
81
+
await exporter.checkPermissions();
82
+
} catch (error: unknown) {
83
+
if (isPermissionError(error)) {
84
+
const msg = error instanceof Error ? error.message : String(error);
85
+
console.error(`\n ${msg}`);
86
+
console.error(
87
+
`\n Fix the permission issue and run \`attic backup\` again.\n`,
88
+
);
89
+
return {
90
+
uploaded: 0,
91
+
failed: assets.length,
92
+
skipped: 0,
93
+
totalBytes: 0,
94
+
errors: [],
95
+
};
96
+
}
97
+
// Non-permission errors from the probe are non-fatal — ladder may
98
+
// not be installed yet, or Photos may not be set up. Let the normal
99
+
// batch flow surface these errors with full context.
100
+
}
101
+
}
102
+
78
103
// Filter to pending assets
79
104
let pending = assets.filter((a) => !isBackedUp(manifest, a.uuid));
80
105
+12
cli/src/export/exporter.ts
+12
cli/src/export/exporter.ts
···
30
30
): Promise<ExportBatchResult>;
31
31
/** Hint to scale timeout for the next exportBatch call. Implementations may ignore. */
32
32
setEstimatedBatchBytes?(estimatedBytes: number): void;
33
+
/** Pre-flight check: verify ladder has required permissions (Photos, Automation). */
34
+
checkPermissions?(): Promise<void>;
33
35
}
34
36
35
37
/** Thrown when the ladder subprocess exceeds its timeout. */
···
232
234
baseTimeoutMs,
233
235
timeoutForBytes(estimatedBytes),
234
236
);
237
+
},
238
+
239
+
async checkPermissions(): Promise<void> {
240
+
if (!stagingDirCreated) {
241
+
await Deno.mkdir(stagingDir, { recursive: true });
242
+
stagingDirCreated = true;
243
+
}
244
+
// Spawn ladder with an empty UUID list — triggers pre-flight
245
+
// permission checks without exporting anything.
246
+
await spawnLadder(ladderPath, [], stagingDir, 30_000);
235
247
},
236
248
237
249
async exportBatch(