Setting up Github Actions for Hugo

I setup Github Actions workflow for this blog to automate the publishing. Actions were new to me, this was a fun learning activity.

I had to write a new one because I could not find an existing action which filled my needs. Here is how it is setup:

1. My content, hugo config stays in the root of master branch and published site is at root of gh-pages.

2. Every commit on master should trigger a publish and non master commits should be ignored. For them, I use netfliy deploy previews.

3. Commits on gh-pages should preserve history. Some actions delete the existing history.

4. Since every commit on gh-pages reflects a commit from master, I wanted each of these commits to have the same commit message which triggered the build.

I have made this Github Action available here - hugo-publish