Creating a clean gh-pages branch

gh-pages.index.yaml

### Creating a clean gh-pages branch

This is the sequence of steps to follow to create a root `gh-pages` branch. It is based on a question at [SO]

``` {shell}
git symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/gh-pages
rm .git/index
git clean -fdx
echo "apiVersion: v1
entries:" > index.yaml
touch .nojekyll
git add .
git commit -a -m "First pages commit"
git push origin gh-pages
```

Why do we need to do all this, instead of just calling `git branch gh-pages`. Well, if you are at master and you do `git branch gh-pages`, gh-pages will be based off master.

gh-pages.md

Creating a clean gh-pages branch

This is the sequence of steps to follow to create a root gh-pages branch. It is based on a question at SO

git symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/gh-pages
rm .git/index
git clean -fdx
echo "My GitHub Page" > index.html
git add .
git commit -a -m "First pages commit"
git push origin gh-pages

Why do we need to do all this, instead of just calling git branch gh-pages. Well, if you are at master and you do git branch gh-pages, gh-pages will be based off master.

Here, the intention is to create a branch for github pages, which is typically not associated with the history of your repo (master and other branches) and hence the usage of git symbolic-ref. This creates a "root branch", which is one without a previous history.

Note that it is also called an orphan branch and git checkout --orphan will now do the same thing as the git symbolic-ref that was being done before. Check out this question on SO2 as well.