Deploy a subdirectory from a git repo to a different branch. Useful to deploy to GitHub Pages.

The shell script portion of this code is from X1011/git-directory-deploy, and it's best explained in that README:

Unlike the git-subtree approach, it does not require the generated files be committed to the source branch. It keeps a linear history on the deploy branch and does not make superfluous commits or deploys when the generated files do not change.

This repo accomplishes a few other things:

• Named cli args
• Publish it to npm so I can use it as a devDep in projects

I normally use it like this:

cd project/ # Assumes a git directory with a package.json
echo _build >> .gitignore
npm install git-directory-deploy --save-dev
touch build.js # For however you want to build your static files

Then add these scripts to package.json:

"scripts": {
  "build": "node build.js", // should write files to _build/
  "deploy": "npm run build && git-directory-deploy --directory _build/"
}

Then: npm run deploy!

Check out npm-v0-finder for an example.

For global use:

npm install -g git-directory-deploy

cd projects/i-want-to-deploy/

git-directory-deploy --directory _dist --branch gh-pages

Or for use in via npm run-script:

npm install git-directory-deploy --save-dev

and then use it in your package.json likes this:

"scripts": {
    "deploy": "git-directory-deploy --directory _dist --branch gh-pages"
}

The subdirectory to deploy. Defaults to _site/.

The branch that will receive the deploy. Defaults to gh-pages.

The repo to push the deploy to. Defaults to origin.

The username that will be associated with the deploy commit. This will always be set to the current user.name from git config, but if that is not set, then it can be set via this flag.

The email that will be associated with the deploy commit. This will always be set to the current user.email from git config, but if that is not set, then it can be set via this flag.

Append something to the commit message. The message will look like this:

publish: $COMMIT_MESSAGE $MESSAGE

generated from commit $COMMIT_HASH

Be louder.

Allow the --directory to be empty.

Deploy will not override files that are in the remote repo but not in the deploy directory.

MIT

The script at bin/git-directory-deploy.sh is Copyright Daniel Smith. See the file for terms.