I recently switched over the source control of my blog from Bitbucket to Github, because I wanted to try out a new workflow with regards to editing and publishing posts.

As I tend to create a new git branch for each post I am working on, I wanted to use the pull request approach to publishing postsI first came across this idea, thanks those wonderful folks over at ThoughtBot. Now granted I am not collaborating with others on posts; however I still find this review process handy. Reading the post in a different context has been beneficial. Furthermore I now tend to give myself a few days between writing and posting as a result of this process. Using Github and their editor I can review, re-read and edit posts at my convenience. So far it’s worked well for me.

This got me thinking though: are there any other improvements I could make to my workflow… Well yes there are. As I mentioned I tend to create a branch for each post, followed by running the new post rake task. I started by modifying the tasks for posts and pages to create a new branch for me using the title. Then I realised I could take it even further, create an initial commit and create a new tracked remote branch. Here’s what the output looks like:

blog git:(change-workflow) rake 'new_post[test branch]'
mkdir -p source/_posts
Creating new post: source/_posts/2015-01-24-test-branch.markdown
Switched to a new branch 'test-branch'
[test-branch c5c786a] created new post entry: test-branch
2 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 source/_posts/2015-01-24-test-branch.markdown
Counting objects: 8, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (8/8), done.
Writing objects: 100% (8/8), 801 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 8 (delta 6), reused 0 (delta 0)
To git@github.com:gregstewart/blog.git
* [new branch]      test-branch -> test-branch
Branch test-branch set up to track remote branch test-branch from origin.

The code for this is pretty straight forward and not foolproof, but a good starting point:

# create git branch
def create_branch(branch_name)
    exec "git checkout -b #{branch_name}; git add .; git commit -m 'created new post entry: #{branch_name}'; git push -u origin #{branch_name}"
end

The next thing I wanted to improve upon was the publishing step. Commit/Push/Generate and Deploy were the steps I used in the past, a bit long winded and repetitive. Also if I was not at home, then I had to wait to publish an update. Given how I am now using Pull Requests and use Github to sign off on and merge these, why not use CI to build and publish the Blog on merge to master? So I created a new project over at CodeShip, left the test settings empty, but under deployment added:

bundle exec rake generate
bundle exec rake deploy

Now whenever I merge a pull request, CI takes over and publishes my post to my server! Note that, if like me you use rsync, you will need to add CodeShips public key to your authorized_keys in order for Octopress’ rsync publishing to work. This post is the first to feature this new workflow!

Update: it turns out you can complete this workflow using Bitbucket as well!