How do I force a subtree push to overwrite remote changes?

Question

We use a subtree deployment a lá this Gist to deploy a subdirectory of our Yeoman project. In our case, the branch is called production, not gh-pages.

Answer 1

There is actually a solution that is much more simple.

Source: https://gist.github.com/cobyism/4730490#gistcomment-2337463

Setup

$ rm -rf dist
$ echo "dist/" >> .gitignore
$ git worktree add dist gh-pages

Making changes

$ make # or what ever you run to populate dist
$ cd dist
$ git add --all
$ git commit -m "$(git log '--format=format:%H' master -1)"
$ git push origin production --force
$ cd ..

Answer 2

The trick was to chain the subtree split into a forced push:

git push origin `git subtree split --prefix dist master`:production --force

I got this from the Addendum of http://clontz.org/blog/2014/05/08/git-subtree-push-for-deployment/, who actually references this answer on Stack Overflow. I had skimmed this one earlier but Steve Clontz's post made it click for me.

Answer 3

There is a simpler solution

This always works for me.

1. Set up a bash script which helps you do the following:

cd dist
git init
git add .
git commit -am "deploy"
git push --force <remote URL> master
rm -rf .git
cd ..

This creates a new git repository in the subdirectory you specify and force pushes everything from there.

2. profit

Answer 4

I've just enhanced the answer of ele adding generic expressions <> to make it more clear:

git push <remote> `git subtree split --prefix <local-folder> <remote-branch>`:<remote-branch> --force

Example values

<remote>

origin
other-origin-name
https://github.com/full-url/of-repo

<local-folder>

Local folder relative to repo root (execute this command in root), e.g.: /dist

<remote-branch>

master
any-other-branchname