GitHub Actions deployment error: "Git push failed"

[mrousavy]

🐛 Bug Report

I am trying to use GitHub actions to automatically build my documentation from the main branch (docs/ folder) and deploy it to the gh-pages branch.

I've followed the official guide, but can't seem to get it working.

Success! Generated static files in build. Use `npm run serve` to test your build locally.

Site successfully built in locale=en
CMD: git clone https://git@github.com/cuvent/react-native-vision-camera.git react-native-vision-camera-gh-pages (code=0)
CMD: git checkout origin/gh-pages (code=0)
CMD: git checkout -b gh-pages (code=0)
CMD: git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/gh-pages (code=0)
CMD: git rm -rf . (code=0)
CMD: git add --all (code=0)
CMD: git commit -m "Deploy website - based on a97a3cf6ec9602e116bdd774c50c85c1f8d89097" (code=0)
CMD: git push --force origin gh-pages (code=128)
/home/runner/work/react-native-vision-camera/react-native-vision-camera/docs/node_modules/@docusaurus/core/lib/commands/deploy.js:145
                throw new Error('Error: Git push failed');
                ^

Error: Error: Git push failed
    at /home/runner/work/react-native-vision-camera/react-native-vision-camera/docs/node_modules/@docusaurus/core/lib/commands/deploy.js:145:23
    at copyDirItems (/home/runner/work/react-native-vision-camera/react-native-vision-camera/docs/node_modules/fs-extra/lib/copy/copy.js:171:21)
    at /home/runner/work/react-native-vision-camera/react-native-vision-camera/docs/node_modules/fs-extra/lib/copy/copy.js:183:14
    at /home/runner/work/react-native-vision-camera/react-native-vision-camera/docs/node_modules/graceful-fs/polyfills.js:247:20
    at FSReqCallback.oncomplete (fs.js:156:23)
error Command failed with exit code 1.
info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/run for documentation about this command.
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

This is my GitHub Action:

name: Build Documentation

on:
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  checks:
    if: github.event_name != 'push'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: '12.x'
      - name: Test Build
        run: |
          if [ -e yarn.lock ]; then
          yarn install --frozen-lockfile
          elif [ -e package-lock.json ]; then
          npm ci
          else
          npm i
          fi
          npm run build
  gh-release:
    if: github.event_name != 'pull_request'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: '12.x'
      - name: Add key to allow access to repository
        env:
          SSH_AUTH_SOCK: /tmp/ssh_agent.sock
        run: |
          mkdir -p ~/.ssh
          ssh-keyscan github.com >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts
          echo "${{ secrets.GH_PAGES_DEPLOY }}" > ~/.ssh/id_rsa
          chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
          cat <<EOT >> ~/.ssh/config
          Host github.com
          HostName github.com
          IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
          EOT
      - name: Release to GitHub Pages
        env:
          USE_SSH: false
          GIT_USER: git
          CURRENT_BRANCH: main
          DEPLOYMENT_BRANCH: gh-pages
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          git config --global user.email "actions@github.com"
          git config --global user.name "gh-actions"
          cd docs
          yarn install --frozen-lockfile
          yarn deploy

Have you read the Contributing Guidelines on issues?

yea

Your Environment

• Public source code: https://github.com/cuvent/react-native-vision-camera
• Public site url: https://github.com/cuvent/react-native-vision-camera
• Docusaurus version used: 2.0.0-alpha.70

Reproducible Demo

See my repo, especially the docusaurus config file and the github action.

And here's the log output from the GitHub action.

Note that it does work if I run it locally, so I'm guessing something in the action isn't correctly configured/authenticated...

[mrousavy]

I think this happens because I set USE_SSH: false. But if I use USE_SSH: true, the git command fails at git clone....

• Here's the GitHub action log output with USE_SSH: false (notice error: Error: Git push failed)
• Here's the GitHub action log output with USE_SSH: true (notice error: Error: git clone failed)

I also noticed that the Deploy Key has "never been used":

Here's the "Secrets" Page:

Do I have to set anything in "Environments"?

[mrousavy]

Why does it even try to git clone again? When this code runs it already is in the git repo...

[slorber]

can you try the new workflow introduced by this PR?
#4263

I'm not too familiar with GH action, would have to inspect the code. more carefully to understand this problem

[mrousavy]

@armano2 I'm pretty sure that won't work as I have already tried that before. I will try again later in case I missed anything.

@slorber so that's just moving the ssh-agent step into a dedicated action right?

I have currently got it working like this:

  gh-release:
    if: github.event_name != 'pull_request'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v1

      - name: Add key to allow access to repository
        env:
          SSH_AUTH_SOCK: /tmp/ssh_agent.sock
        run: |
          mkdir -p ~/.ssh
          ssh-keyscan github.com >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts
          echo "${{ secrets.GH_PAGES_DEPLOY }}" > ~/.ssh/id_rsa
          chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
          cat <<EOT >> ~/.ssh/config
          Host github.com
          HostName github.com
          IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
          EOT
      - name: Get yarn cache directory path
        id: yarn-cache-dir-path
        run: echo "::set-output name=dir::$(yarn cache dir)"
      - name: Restore node_modules from cache
        uses: actions/cache@v2
        id: yarn-cache
        with:
          path: ${{ steps.yarn-cache-dir-path.outputs.dir }}
          key: ${{ runner.os }}-yarn-${{ hashFiles('**/yarn.lock') }}
          restore-keys: |
            ${{ runner.os }}-yarn-
      - name: Release to GitHub Pages
        env:
          USE_SSH: true
          GIT_USER: git
          CURRENT_BRANCH: main
          DEPLOYMENT_BRANCH: gh-pages
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          git config --global user.email "actions@github.com"
          git config --global user.name "gh-actions"
          yarn install --frozen-lockfile
          cd docs
          yarn install --frozen-lockfile
          yarn deploy

I'm not sure if that's the best, fastest or safest way, but it works. I'll try to remove all of the SSH stuff so I don't need to worry about the private/public key+secret and just try to use checkout@v2 like @armano2 commented.

[mrousavy]

@armano2 okay so I just tried it like this:

  gh-release:
    if: github.event_name != 'pull_request'
    name: Build & Release Documentation
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2

      - name: Get yarn cache directory path
        id: yarn-cache-dir-path
        run: echo "::set-output name=dir::$(yarn cache dir)"
      - name: Restore node_modules from cache
        uses: actions/cache@v2
        id: yarn-cache
        with:
          path: ${{ steps.yarn-cache-dir-path.outputs.dir }}
          key: ${{ runner.os }}-yarn-${{ hashFiles('**/yarn.lock') }}
          restore-keys: |
            ${{ runner.os }}-yarn-

      - name: Release to GitHub Pages
        env:
          USE_SSH: true
          GIT_USER: github-actions
          CURRENT_BRANCH: main
          DEPLOYMENT_BRANCH: gh-pages
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          date > generated.txt
          git config user.name github-actions
          git config user.email github-actions@github.com
          yarn install --frozen-lockfile
          cd docs
          yarn install --frozen-lockfile
          yarn deploy

and it did not work. It fails at git clone again:

And if I set USE_SSH: false, git push fails:

[polarathene]

The checkout action default is a shallow clone of the commit. You may need to pull the full history to properly be in sync when doing a push.

- uses: actions/checkout@v2
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0

Alternatively, as I have noticed (with a different deployment approach), gh-pages branch may not share a common commit if it was never branched off. For me this causes some issues with my Git GUI, I wouldn't be surprised if it causes any issues with regular git CLI either, unless you clone the branch separately.

Anyway, I started out with the approach that Docusaurus originally documented and found it over-complicated for deploying Github Pages vs other platforms. You can use a Github Action for deployment like this (no SSH keys required):

- name: 'Your build steps'
  run: |
    date > generated.txt
    yarn install --frozen-lockfile
    cd docs
    yarn install --frozen-lockfile
    yarn build

- name: 'Deploy to Github Pages'
  uses: peaceiris/actions-gh-pages@v3
  with:
    github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    publish_dir: ./docs/build
    user_name: 'github-actions[bot]'
    user_email: '41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com'

Note I changed yarn deploy to yarn build. This is assuming your docs output a build to ./docs/build. I'm not sure what the earlier date and yarn install commands are for prior to changing to docs dir, as those won't be part of the deployment?

---

UPDATE: Full workflow example is available via this PR, it presently has plenty of inline comments to clarify anything about the workflow.