pro tip: push-to-deploy git repositories

I recently wrote a static site generator which, incidentally, powers this site. This means that making a site is pretty easy, but what about putting it online?

If you have your own server, you can easily self-host static websites, just point your HTTP server (I use nginx), and use this pro tip:

The push-to-deploy git repo

Setting up a push-to-deploy git repo is really simple - All you need to do is set up a new git repo on the server (with git init), and utter the magical incantation:

git config receive.denyCurrentBranch updateInstead

Then, we can just point our webserver at this repository to serve the website. This means our workflow for deploying the website is as simple as git push, along with any build steps for your static sites.

(Note: You probably want to deny access to the .git folder of your site, for security reasons. This matters a whole lot more for dynamic sites than static ones, but it’s still good to not let people into your commit history if you don’t want them to be. An example I remember of abusing .git access via web is from the Overwatch: Sombra ARG, where we read the .git folder of a PHP application to view the sources.)

I use this option for som.codes - With the remote-linked repo in the build folder, a deploy.sh script does the following:

rm -rf build/*
make
(cd build/ && git add -A . && git commit -m "[Auto] Deploy $(date)" && git push)

Other options: Managed hosting

Services like GitHub and GitLab offer free hosting of static sites (even on your own domain!), with the same git-push-to-deploy UX you can find here. If you don’t want to manage your own server, this is a great option.