Continuous deployment

git-ftp needs nothing but Git and a network connection, which makes it a comfortable deploy step in any CI system.

Fetch the whole history

Most CI systems clone with --depth 1. git-ftp has to diff against the commit recorded on the server, and that commit is usually not in a shallow clone — the deployment then uploads everything, or fails. Configure a full clone, as shown below.

Keep the credentials in the CI system's secret store and pass them through the environment; never commit them.

GitHub Actions

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

concurrency: deploy   # one deployment at a time

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0          # git-ftp needs the history

      - uses: actions/setup-python@v7
        with:
          python-version: "3.x"

      - run: pip install git-ftp

      - name: Deploy
        env:
          GIT_FTP_URL: ftp://example.com/public_html
          GIT_FTP_USER: ${{ secrets.FTP_USER }}
          GIT_FTP_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.FTP_PASSWORD }}
        run: git ftp push --auto-init

--auto-init uploads everything the first time, so the very first run works without a manual git ftp init.

There is also a ready-made action built on the Bash implementation: FTP Deploy.

GitLab CI

.gitlab-ci.yml

deploy:
  stage: deploy
  image: python:3-slim
  variables:
    GIT_DEPTH: 0                  # git-ftp needs the history
  only:
    - main
  before_script:
    - apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends git
    - pip install git-ftp
  script:
    - git ftp push --auto-init

Set GIT_FTP_URL, GIT_FTP_USER and GIT_FTP_PASSWORD as masked, protected CI/CD variables in the project settings.

Bitbucket Pipelines

bitbucket-pipelines.yml

image: python:3-slim

clone:
  depth: full                     # git-ftp needs the history

pipelines:
  branches:
    main:
      - step:
          name: Deploy
          deployment: production
          script:
            - apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends git
            - pip install git-ftp
            - git ftp push --auto-init

There is a video walkthrough of the same setup with the Bash implementation.

Deploying per environment

If scopes are named after branches, one step covers all of them:

git ftp push -s          # scope = current branch name

See scopes.

Things worth adding

• Serialise deployments. Two jobs deploying at once corrupt each other's state. Use the CI system's concurrency control, and --lock as a second net.
• Build first. Compile assets in an earlier step and list the results in .git-ftp-include.
• Look before pushing. A git ftp push --dry-run step on pull requests shows what a merge would deploy.
• Fail loudly. git-ftp's exit codes distinguish a login failure (4) from a locked remote (7) and a hook veto (9).