diff --git a/.backportrc.json b/.backportrc.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..6ba944c873
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.backportrc.json
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+{
+  "repoOwner": "elastic",
+  "repoName": "elasticsearch-specification",
+  "targetBranchChoices": ["9.0", "8.19", "8.18", "8.17"],
+  "fork": false
+}