Weekly

Back up your index every week

Every week a fresh backup of your index is created and you get an email with its ID.

Runs: Weekly
Apps: Pinecone
AI: Not needed
Access: API key

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every Sunday at 3am, create a backup of my Pinecone index docs-search and email me the backup ID and record count.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

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First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

Teams often treat a vector index as disposable until it is not. Rebuilding embeddings for hundreds of thousands of records costs money and hours, and a mistaken deletion, a bad migration or a corrupted namespace can wipe out work that took weeks. Many teams realize they never made a backup only on the day they need one.

Once a week, a backup of the Pinecone index is created. Optionally, backups older than a retention period are pruned so storage does not grow without limit. When it finishes, an email confirms that the backup exists, so you know the safety net was made without logging into the console to check. Engineers on small teams, who cannot dedicate time to storage routines, benefit most from a backup that simply happens.

It suits anyone with an index that holds expensive embeddings or records that cannot easily be regenerated.

What you get out of it

Recovery without rebuilding
If an index is damaged, a backup lets you restore it rather than re-embedding every record. That saves the cost of the embedding calls and the days spent re-ingesting. That difference can be thousands of embedding calls and several lost working days.
Confirmation that it really ran
A backup you assume exists is not a backup. The weekly email shows that it was made, and a missing email is a signal to look into why. That small signal catches the failure mode where a job stopped months ago and nobody noticed.
Protection from human error
The most common cause of data loss is a person running the wrong command. A recent backup turns that mistake from a disaster into an inconvenience. Recovering from a bad command in minutes is a far better story to tell the team than rebuilding for days.
Controlled storage over time
Pruning old backups keeps the number of snapshots manageable. You retain a useful history without paying to keep every copy from the past year. Predictable costs and a clean list of snapshots also make it easier to know which one to restore.
Evidence for compliance questions
Customers or auditors sometimes ask how you protect data. A record of weekly backups gives you a straightforward answer, with dated emails to show it. Written proof of a regular routine is far more convincing than a verbal assurance.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Once a week, ClickRuntime asks Pinecone to back up your index and names the backup with today's date.
Pinecone creates the backup.
You get an email with the backup ID and how many records it holds.

Before it runs live

Connect Pinecone

What you get

RunsWeekly

Back up your index every weektoday, 9:00Succeeded

Email · Pinecone backupBackup 3f9c1e7a of docs-search, 131,402 records.

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Pinecone steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

weekly_backup_with_confirmation_email.pyexample

from datetime import date
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, notify, http

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    resp = http.post("https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/docs-search/backups",
                     headers={"Api-Key": credentials.secret("PINECONE_API_KEY"), "X-Pinecone-API-Version": "2025-04"},
                     json={"name": f"docs-search-{date.today()}"})
    resp.raise_for_status()
    backup = resp.json()
    notify.email_me("Pinecone backup created",
                    f"Backup {backup['backup_id']} of docs-search, {backup.get('record_count', 'pending')} records.")
    return {"backup_id": backup["backup_id"]}

FAQ

Common questions

How long does a backup take?

It depends on the size of the index. Pinecone creates the backup on its side, and the email is sent when the request completes. Large indexes may take longer, but nothing runs on your own systems.

Can I restore from the email?

The email confirms the backup and its name. To restore, you create a new index from that backup in Pinecone's console or through its API, using the name from the email as the reference. Pinecone documents the restore steps.

How many backups does it keep?

If pruning is turned on, backups older than the period you choose are removed. Without it, they accumulate. Let your AI assistant know whether you want to keep four weeks or twelve, and approve the updated version first.

What permissions does it need?

API key. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it runs (weekly). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

On a schedule