Use case

Backups from CI

A nightly archive to your bucket from a workflow, with secrets from the runner and no file to check in.

.github/workflows/nightly.yml

- run: tar cz ./data | npx @s3nd/cli put - --name backup.tar.gz --expires-in never
  env:
    S3ND_BUCKET: transfers
    S3ND_PREFIX: backups
    S3ND_ENDPOINT: https://${{ secrets.R2_ACCOUNT_ID }}.r2.cloudflarestorage.com
    S3ND_REGION: auto
    AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
    AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}

The situation

What is actually going on.

The problem

A workflow produces something worth keeping: a database dump, a build, a generated report. It needs to land in your bucket every night, without a config file in the repository and without a client library in the workflow.

What s3nd does about it

npx @s3nd/cli put, with the bucket and credentials in environment variables from the runner’s secret store. Two flags turn a transfer into a backup: --expires-in never, and a prefix of its own so the lifecycle rule on transfers cannot reach it.

Worth watching

The things that are easy to get wrong.

--json for the logs

Machine-readable output, and s3nd doctor --json exits non-zero when a check fails, so it doubles as a deployment smoke test.

A prefix per policy

Transfers expire, backups do not. Keeping them under different prefixes is what lets one bucket hold both.

Packages@s3nd/cli

Other shapes of the same primitive.

A file between two machines

A laptop, a desktop, a code. No server, no account, through the bucket you already have.

A drop box for your team

One route on your own domain, a token per person, and a code instead of a chat upload.

Move an app to a new device

A local-first app with no accounts. A code on the old phone, typed into the new one, and the whole database follows.

Put a file. Hand over the code.

Point it at the bucket you already pay for. Nothing to deploy, nothing to sign up for, nothing in the middle.

Install the CLI Put it in your app GitHub

$npm install -g @s3nd/cli$s3nd init --provider r2 --bucket drop$s3nd put ./anything.zip