hakyll/web/tutorials/github-pages-tutorial.md

Using Hakyll with GitHub Pages

In the interest of keeping this guide as simple as possible, I'll be making a few assumptions.

1. Haskell is being used with Stack.
2. Creating a user/organization site (vice a project site).
3. You haven't changed Hakyll's default output directory of '_site/'.

These instructions should be easy to adapt for any situation though.

GitHub Setup

1. If required, create a new repository for your blog.
2. If required, create a master branch.
3. If applicable/desired, create/add to your repository any files that your site needs that will not be produced by your Hakyll project. For example, CNAME as outlined here.
4. Create a .gitignore file with at a minimum, the following entries:

_cache/
_site/
.stack-work/

Local setup

1. If required, create a new Hakyll project. If you're a stack user, there is a Hakyll template available that makes this step easy.

stack new myblog hakyll-template

2. Create a .gitignore file in your blog's directory with at a minimum, the same directories listed as in the GitHub repository.
3. Use the following git commands to setup your local repository.

git init
# create new branch called develop and switch to it.
git checkout -b develop
# track all the source files for our blog.
git add .
# make our first commit
git commit -m "initial commit."
# and add the GitHub repository as a remote.
git remote add origin <URL to your GitHub pages repository>

Deployment

So everything's all setup and we're ready to deploy.

Note: Performing the following commands from your develop branch is recommended since you will end up back in that branch at the end.

Temporarily save any uncommitted changes that may exist in the current branch.

git stash

Ensure we are in the correct branch.

git checkout develop

Get a clean build of our site.

stack exec myblog clean
stack exec myblog build

Update the local list of remote branches to ensure we're able to checkout the branch we want in the next step.

git fetch -all

Switches to a new branch called "publish" that tracks the origin "master" branch. Note: Checking out the publish branch does not overwrite the files that Hakyll just produced because we have '_site' in both .gitignore files.

git checkout -b publish --track origin/master

Copy the freshly made contents of '_site' over the old ones. Note that if a file is no longer being produced (for example if you deleted a blog posting), it will continue to persist in your published site until it's been removed from that repository as well.

cp -a _site/. .

Commit our changes.

git add -A
git commit -m "publish."

And send them to GitHub.

git push origin publish:master

Final clean up and return to the original state.

git checkout develop
git branch -D publish
git stash pop

And that's it.

Here is a full listing of the script.

# Temporarily store uncommited changes
git stash

# Verify correct branch
git checkout develop

# Build new files
stack exec myblog clean
stack exec myblog build

# Get previous files
git fetch -all
git checkout -b publish --track origin/master

# Overwrite existing files with new files
cp -a _site/. .

# Commit
git add -A
git commit -m "publish."

# Push
git push origin publish:master

# Restoration
git checkout develop
git branch -D publish
git stash pop