Rewrite the backup alerts in plain language

The alerts were written for whoever was debugging them, not for whoever reads
them on a phone on a Sunday. They led with the mechanism and left the reader to
work out whether anything was actually broken.

Each one now opens by saying what is and is not affected — the checklists and
the website are almost always fine, and an off-site copy problem is not an
emergency — then what happened, then what to do. The scary-sounding ones say
plainly that previous backups are untouched, because that is the first thing
worth knowing and it was never stated.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

backup-to-drive.sh

@@ -69,26 +69,36 @@ SSH_KEY="$HOME/.ssh/id_ed25519_checklist_nas"
 SSH_OPTS="-o BatchMode=yes -o StrictHostKeyChecking=accept-new -o ConnectTimeout=20 -i $SSH_KEY"
 
 if [ ! -f "$SSH_KEY" ]; then
-  die "no SSH key for the NAS at $SSH_KEY" \
-      "Generate one and authorise it on the NAS:
+  die "tonight's backup did not run — the key for the NAS is missing" \
+      "Nothing was copied off-site tonight. Previous backups are untouched and safe.
+
+This machine signs in to the NAS with a key file, and that file is gone from
+  $SSH_KEY
+
+To fix it, on this Mac:
   ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f $SSH_KEY -N ''
   ssh-copy-id -i $SSH_KEY $NAS_USER@$NAS_HOST"
 fi
 if ! ssh $SSH_OPTS "$NAS_USER@$NAS_HOST" true 2>/dev/null; then
-  die "cannot reach the NAS over SSH" \
-      "Key auth to $NAS_USER@$NAS_HOST failed. Either the NAS is down, or the key at
-$SSH_KEY is no longer in its authorized_keys."
+  die "tonight's backup did not run — could not reach the NAS" \
+      "Nothing was copied off-site tonight. Previous backups are untouched and safe.
+
+Either the NAS is off or off the network, or this machine's key is no longer
+accepted by it. Worth checking the NAS is up first; that is the usual cause."
 fi
 
 # Google Drive streams files on demand; if the app is signed out or not running the path
 # simply is not there. Writing to a path Drive is not watching would look like it worked and
 # sync nothing, so refuse rather than pretend.
 if [ -z "$DRIVE_DIR" ]; then
-  die "cannot find the Drive backup folder" \
-      "Looked under every ~/Library/CloudStorage/GoogleDrive-* account for
-  Shared drives/Waters Creative/Apps/Checklist Backups
-and found none. Is Google Drive for Desktop running and signed in, and does that
-folder still exist under that name?"
+  die "tonight's backup did not run — the Google Drive folder is missing" \
+      "Nothing was copied off-site tonight. Previous backups are untouched and safe.
+
+The folder it copies into could not be found:
+  Shared drives > Waters Creative > Apps > Checklist Backups
+
+Usually this means Google Drive is not running or has signed out on this Mac.
+It can also mean the folder was renamed or moved."
 fi
 say "Drive folder: $DRIVE_DIR"
 
@@ -100,9 +110,12 @@ run_remote() {   # $1 = remote command
 REMOTE_LIST="$(run_remote "ls -1 $REMOTE_DIR/checklists-*.json 2>/dev/null | xargs -n1 basename" \
               | grep -E '^checklists-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}\.json$' | sort)"
 if [ -z "$REMOTE_LIST" ]; then
-  die "no backups found on the NAS, or SSH failed" \
-      "Expected $REMOTE_DIR/checklists-<date>.json on $NAS_HOST. Either the NAS's own
-nightly job has stopped writing them, or this machine can no longer reach the NAS."
+  die "the NAS has no backups to copy" \
+      "Copies already in Google Drive are untouched and safe, but no new ones were found.
+
+The NAS writes a backup of the checklists every night at 03:30, and none are
+there. That is a problem on the NAS itself rather than with this copy job — the
+checklist app may have stopped writing them."
 fi
 say "NAS has $(echo "$REMOTE_LIST" | wc -l | tr -d ' ') backup(s)"
 
@@ -204,12 +217,16 @@ say "✓ done — $TOTAL copies off-site, newest ${NEWEST:-none}"
 # tomorrow is noise, and nightly noise is how an alert stops being read — which is the whole
 # failure mode this script exists to prevent.
 if [ -n "${OVERDUE:-}" ]; then
-  alert "backup file(s) still missing off-site after several days" \
-        "These NAS backups have failed to copy for more than $STALE_DAYS days, so the
-retries are not recovering on their own:
+  alert "some backups are not reaching Google Drive" \
+        "The website and the checklists themselves are fine. This is about the off-site
+copies only.
+
+These have failed to copy for more than $STALE_DAYS days, so the automatic retries
+are not fixing it:
 
 $OVERDUE
-Log: $LOG"
+Everything else copied normally. Worth a look when convenient — it is not urgent
+unless it keeps growing."
 elif [ "${FAILED:-0}" -gt 0 ]; then
   say "($FAILED file(s) failed this run but are recent — they will be retried tomorrow, not alerting)"
 fi
@@ -218,15 +235,17 @@ fi
 # failure path above assumes this script RAN; if the Mac is asleep or the LaunchAgent is
 # unloaded, nothing fires at all.
 if [ -z "$NEWEST" ]; then
-  alert "no recent off-site copy" \
-        "No checklists-<date>.json for any of the last 60 days was found in
-$DRIVE_DIR
-Either copying has stopped, or this machine cannot read that folder."
+  alert "no recent backup in Google Drive" \
+        "The checklists themselves are fine — this is about the off-site copies.
+
+Nothing from the last 60 days is in the Drive folder. Either the copying has
+stopped, or this Mac can no longer read that folder."
 elif [ "$AGE_DAYS" -gt "$STALE_DAYS" ]; then
-  alert "off-site copy is $AGE_DAYS days old" \
-        "Newest file off-site is $NEWEST ($AGE_DAYS days old); more than $STALE_DAYS days
-means the chain from the NAS to Drive is not working, even though this run did
-not error."
+  alert "backups have stopped reaching Google Drive" \
+        "The checklists themselves are fine — this is about the off-site copies.
+
+The newest one in Drive is $AGE_DAYS days old ($NEWEST). Tonight's run did not
+report an error, which means something is failing quietly rather than loudly."
 else
   say "freshness OK — newest off-site copy is $AGE_DAYS day(s) old"
 fi