System Sovereignty: Visual Customization, Lossless SQLite Backups & Disaster Recovery

Personalize your visual command deck to match your working environment.

1. Open Settings from the bottom of the sidebar or press Alt+,.
2. Locate the Theme Selector and choose from 3 curated palettes:
   • Deep Space Command (Default): Deep navy void styling with subtle cyan and violet accents.
   • Cyberpunk Teal: Vibrant neon teal highlights for energetic focus blocks.
   • High Contrast Dark: Enhanced contrast borders and stark typography for low-light night work.
3. Toggle Enable Ambient Starfield Canvas Motion to enable or disable animated starfield background canvases.
4. Return to Command Centre to verify legibility and aesthetic feel.

Asterion provides two distinct data export tools in Settings. Understanding the architectural difference is critical for your data safety:

To create a verified, lossless backup, execute the Python script below. It closes the database safely, invokes SQLite’s native backup(dst) online API, captures WAL transactions, includes configuration files, and executes PRAGMA integrity_check before confirming success.

1. Close Asterion completely so that no application locks remain active.
2. Open a terminal and run the verified backup command:

python3 - <<'BACKUP'
from pathlib import Path
from datetime import datetime
import os, sqlite3, shutil
base = Path(os.environ.get("XDG_DATA_HOME", str(Path.home()/".local/share")))
config = Path(os.environ.get("XDG_CONFIG_HOME", str(Path.home()/".config")))
source = base / "asterion"
target = Path.home()/"Asterion-backups"/datetime.now().strftime("%Y%m%d-%H%M%S")
database = source/"asterion.sqlite3"
if not database.is_file():
    raise SystemExit("No Asterion database at " + str(database))
target.mkdir(parents=True, mode=0o700, exist_ok=False)
shutil.copytree(source, target/"data", ignore=shutil.ignore_patterns("asterion.sqlite3*", "backups"))
with sqlite3.connect(database.as_uri()+"?mode=ro", uri=True) as src:
    with sqlite3.connect(target/"data/asterion.sqlite3") as dst:
        src.backup(dst)
        assert dst.execute("PRAGMA integrity_check").fetchone()[0] == "ok"
for rel in ("RetraceEnterprises/Asterion.conf", "asterion"):
    item = config/rel
    if item.exists():
        dest = target/"config"/rel
        dest.parent.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
        shutil.copytree(item, dest) if item.is_dir() else shutil.copy2(item, dest)
print("Backup verified:", target)
BACKUP

Success Verification: The script prints a verified backup path (e.g. Backup verified: ~/Asterion-backups/YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS) only after the snapshot passes PRAGMA integrity_check == "ok".

Copy that dated folder to an external USB drive, encrypted archive, or your personal NAS.

If you are moving to a new computer or recovering from a drive failure, follow this exact restoration sequence:

1. Ensure Asterion is closed.
2. Open your terminal and rename any existing data directory to keep a safety reserve:

   mv ~/.local/share/asterion ~/.local/share/asterion.safety.$(date +%s)

3. Copy the backup’s data folder into your data path:

   cp -r ~/Asterion-backups/LATEST/data ~/.local/share/asterion

4. Restore your configuration file:

   mkdir -p ~/.config/RetraceEnterprises
   cp ~/Asterion-backups/LATEST/config/RetraceEnterprises/Asterion.conf ~/.config/RetraceEnterprises/

5. Launch Asterion via bash ./run.sh.
6. Inspect your Command Centre, Goals, Habit streaks, and Journal reflections. Once verified, you can retire the safety reserve.