Contact database backed up with restore procedure documented

Contacts and suppression lists are the two most operationally critical datasets in an email system. Losing the suppression list means mailing previously unsubscribed contacts — a CAN-SPAM violation that triggers regulatory fines and FCC complaints. Losing contacts means losing revenue and user relationships with no recovery path. NIST SP 800-53 CP-9 (Information System Backup) requires that backup procedures are tested, not just configured. ISO 25010 reliability.recoverability requires that a restore procedure exists and is documented. A backup without a documented restore procedure is not a recovery plan — it is an archive of unknown integrity.

Configure a daily backup job and document the restore procedure. At minimum, add a scheduled workflow:

# .github/workflows/db-backup.yml
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 2 * * *'  # 2am UTC daily
jobs:
  backup:
    steps:
      - name: Dump contacts table
        run: pg_dump $DATABASE_URL -t contacts -t suppression_list | gzip > backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).sql.gz
      - name: Upload to S3
        run: aws s3 cp backup-*.sql.gz s3://my-backups/email/

Document the restore steps in docs/runbooks/db-restore.md with at least three explicit steps: retrieve the backup, restore to staging, verify row counts. Run a restore drill quarterly to confirm the procedure works end-to-end.