Github: Mirroring gh-pages to master

Question

I\'m developing a jQuery plugin that\'s being hosting on GitHub. It has a demo included of which I\'m manually copying and pushing to the branch gh-pages, what

Answer 1

I'm adding further explanation to @denbuzze and @MCSDWVL answers.

If you want to push both to master and gh-pages automatically each time you run git push origin, you probably want to add a Refspec to the git config of your repo.

So, according to the git-scm book, you can add two RefSpecs, by adding two push values to the repo config file .git/config:

[remote "origin"]
url = https://github.com/<github_user>/<repo_name>
      fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
      push = refs/heads/master:refs/heads/master
      push = refs/heads/master:refs/heads/gh-pages

That will cause a git push origin to:

1. Push the local master branch to the remote master branch
2. Push the local master branch to the remote gh-pages branch

by default.

Note: using a + before the spec causes to force push to the repo. Use it with caution:

The format of the refspec is an optional +, followed by <src>:<dst>, where <src> is the pattern for references on the remote side and <dst> is where those references will be written locally. The + tells Git to update the reference even if it isn’t a fast-forward.

Answer 2

UPDATE: GitHub now allows pages to be published from any branch and directory you want.

---

It was much easier for me to use the gh-pages branch as master. There's nothing magical about "master"; it's just another branch name. There is something magical about gh-pages, because that's where GitHub is looking for index.html to serve your page.

Read more in my other answer on this topic.

Using gh-pages as master is also easier than subtrees, which are easier than mirroring. You could use git subtree as described here or here: if you have a directory which contains your demo, you can push that directory to the gh-branch with one command. Let's say you name the directory gh-pages to make things clear. Then after you've committed and pushed your changes to master, run this to update gh-pages:

git subtree push --prefix gh-pages origin gh-pages

The problem is if your files in gh-pages refer to files in other directories outside it. Symlinks don't work, so you'll have to copy files in the directory that serves as gh-pages.

If you use gh-pages as master, this problem won't occur.