Show HN: Git-Ready to Deploy? Check for uncommitted and non-pushed changes

Show HN: Git-Ready to Deploy? Check for uncommitted and non-pushed changes(github.com)

30 points by oleks 7 years ago | 23 comments

tomxor 7 years ago |

I wrote a git-tag based cli content deployment tool that does something like this as part of the deploy stage. It's intended for use with multiple users with a single remote, so before attempting to deploy anything it does the following to ensure no conflicts and that outdated content is never accidentally deployed:

    - Fetches
    - Checks the branch you are deploying from hasn't diverged from it's tracking branch.
    - Checks whether each path+tree-object combo trying to be deployed has already been tagged.
    - Checks whether each tree path being deployed is clean.
    - Finally, if it fails to push new tags it reverts everything to prevent deploys unavailable to everyone else.

I built this for a special type of content deployment for the company I work for but I think it's only been used internally so far (albeit successfully) - I made the tool as generalised as possible though as the core concept is quite re-usable, but I don't think I have described it's purpose clearly enough for the rest of the world in the readme:

https://github.com/LearningScience/pegit

wereHamster 7 years ago |

Do you know about `git-sh-setup`? As in:

    . "$(git --exec-path)/git-sh-setup"
    require_clean_work_tree "bump" "Please commit or stash them."

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-sh-setup

oleks 7 years ago | |

This will only spot uncommitted changes to tracked files. I want a completely clean repository before I deploy, where there are neither uncommitted changes to tracked files, nor (new) untracked files.

But no, I did not know of git-sh-setup, thanks for the tip :-)

wereHamster 7 years ago | | |

If that's your goal, it might be better to just never deploy from a checked out repository and instead always make a new copy of the code (git clone, git archive, download the tarball from github etc). As in, make the deploy script do that for you, so you never even get into a situation where you could have a dirty working tree in the first place.

TekMol 7 years ago |

I'm confused. How is that different from 'git status'?

oleks 7 years ago | |

It first performs a git status, then fetches changes from upstream, and checks if all local changes have been pushed upstream (using git cherry).

TekMol 7 years ago | | |

I'm curious what the workflow is here.

My workflow looks like this:

A feature branch is mature enough to get merged into master. So I merge it into master on the staging server. And then push it to the public server.

Matt3o12_ 7 years ago | |

Well, git status doesn’t show unpushed changes from other branches but when I deploy, I normally go into the deployment branch and run git status there. So the unpushed changes in other branches would be quite insignificant.

But everyone’s workflow is different. The author maybe should have added a reason why he uses that instead of git status

TekMol 7 years ago | | |

Ok, so that would be a difference. Showing all unpushed changes from all branches.

Seems unusual that all branches are involved in deployment though. Isn't the typical workflow that only one branch get's deployed to the user facing machine?

colemickens 7 years ago |

`git status --porcelain` and `if git diff-index --quiet HEAD -- ; then ...` might be lighter/easier ways (and include non-staged files [as well]).

Er, I guess that doesn't tell if you if you have un-pushed changes... but if your deployment process allows someone to deploy without pushing, your process is broken. Someone will deploy to Prod and forget to push their config changes, eventually.

kbob 7 years ago |

On a somewhat related note, I created check-git a few months ago. It scans a directory tree for unclean git repositories. Maybe someone will find it useful.

https://kbob.github.io/2016/11/08/check-git

kinow 7 years ago |

Useful. Maven checks that for autpmated deployments. It delegates that part to SCM plugins as far as I know. Wonder if this one does the same as Maven. On mobile, but may check later (tis probably around here https://github.com/apache/maven-scm?files=1)

wiz21c 7 years ago |

In my job I've written a small script that compares JIRA entries to what lies into git. This I way I can spot things that were forgotten or put on the wrong branch...

_ZeD_ 7 years ago |

ok, seriously, is "using git push to do a deploy" a thing? WTF?

colemickens 7 years ago | |

Absolutely. I can't imagine doing it any other way anymore. https://www.weave.works/blog/gitops-operations-by-pull-reque...

One of the major reasons Kubernetes is a thing is because all of your deployment can be declarative. Deploy-via-Git means I can destroy my entire world and bring it back in a minute or less.

TomMarius 7 years ago | |

What is the correct way in your opinion?

gregmac 7 years ago | | |

If you have code that needs to compile, pull in packages, load configuration or for any other reason can't just run in production from a clean checkout, then the proper way is to go through a CI server (teamcity, Jenkins, Travis, etc), and have a script that gets from your clean checkout to a package/zip that runs in production.

lioeters 7 years ago | |

I git push to deploy stuff regularly..

- Fetches - Checks the branch you are deploying from hasn't diverged from it's tracking branch. - Checks whether each path+tree-object combo trying to be deployed has already been tagged. - Checks whether each tree path being deployed is clean. - Finally, if it fails to push new tags it reverts everything to prevent deploys unavailable to everyone else.