Deploy a Site to GitHub Pages

Published: 2020-10-11 • Last updated: 2021-04-02

GitHub has a cool feature called GitHub Pages. It’s basically free web hosting for your repo. Your site is served from branch gh-pages. And the url becomes https://<USER_NAME>.github.io/<REPO_NAME>

There’s a python package called ghp-import that does the heavy lifting for you. All you have to do is build your site as normal.

The following is a stripped-down version of necessary steps. For a more fleshed-out version, see https://github.com/zwbetz-gh/github-pages-deploy-pleasejs

# Demo

https://zwbetz-gh.github.io/github-pages-deploy-pleasejs/

# Steps

Install Python version 3.8 or higher
Install the GitHub Pages Import package
```
 pip install ghp-import
```
Build your site. This assumes the built site is under <DIR>

Deploy your site

 ghp-import -n -p -f -m <COMMIT_MSG> <DIR>

# ghp-import arguments

Usage: ghp-import [OPTIONS] DIRECTORY

Options:
  -n, --no-jekyll       Include a .nojekyll file in the branch.
  -c CNAME, --cname=CNAME
                        Write a CNAME file with the given CNAME.
  -m MESG, --message=MESG
                        The commit message to use on the target branch.
  -p, --push            Push the branch to origin/{branch} after committing.
  -x PREFIX, --prefix=PREFIX
                        The prefix to add to each file that gets pushed to the
                        remote. [none]
  -f, --force           Force the push to the repository
  -r REMOTE, --remote=REMOTE
                        The name of the remote to push to. [origin]
  -b BRANCH, --branch=BRANCH
                        Name of the branch to write to. [gh-pages]
  -s, --shell           Use the shell when invoking Git. [False]
  -l, --follow-links    Follow symlinks when adding files. [False]
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit

# Serve

Optionally preview your site locally before you deploy it, with python’s built-in HTTP server:

python -m http.server <PORT> --bind <HOST> --directory <DIR>