Building Middleman using GitHub Actions

My site now posts from anywhere thanks to GitHub actions!

I used this blog as a jumping off point, but there were a few things I had to modify:

  • there's an update to the action/checkout action, so version bump.
  • to handle the node and ruby dependencies, I'm using the provided actions.
  • my changelog relies on having access to the full git history. By default, actions/checkout only pulls the HEAD commit. I added fetch-depth to fix that.

The final file in .github/workflows/main.yml:

name: CI
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - name: Configure AWS Credentials
        uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v1
        with:
          aws-access-key-id: {{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          aws-secret-access-key: {{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          aws-region: us-east-1
      - name: Setup node
        uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: '13.x'
      - name: Install node dependencies
        run: npm ci
      - name: Setup ruby
        uses: ruby/setup-ruby@v1
        with:
          bundler-cache: true
      - name: Install ruby dependencies
        run: bundle install
      - name: Build static site
        run: bundle exec middleman build
      - name: Deploy static site to S3 bucket
        run: aws s3 sync ./build/ s3://{{ secrets.BUCKET_NAME }} --delete

After some pushing and (shameful) git commit --amend, it's working!

As always, I write in Drafts. In the course of writing this post, I wound up hacking some quick actions in Drafts to make this process easier.

Drafts_actions

The first takes a typical Draft and write it to Working Copy in the format that Middleman expects.

// compute the date
let date = draft.createdAt;
// compute the filename
let title =
  draft
    .displayTitle
let filename_title =
  title
    .toLowerCase()
    .replace(/[^a-zA-Z0-9\-]/g, "-")
let filename = `${strftime(date, "%F")}-${filename_title}.html.markdown`
let template =
`---

title: ${draft.displayTitle}
date: ${strftime(date, "%F %R %Z")}

---
${draft.processTemplate("[[body]]")}
`;

let cb = CallbackURL.create();
    cb.baseURL = "working-copy://x-callback-url/write/";
    cb.addParameter("key", "itsasecretdonttell");
    cb.addParameter("repo", "evantravers.com");
    cb.addParameter("path", `source/articles/${filename}`);
    cb.addParameter("text", template);
    cb.addParameter("x-success", "working-copy://");

// open in Working Copy
let success = cb.open();

// error handling
if (success) {
}
else {
  context.fail();
  console.log(cb.status);
}

The next action is a convenience action for me… since my previous action bases the file name on the CreatedAt date of the Draft (which is stable) I can wind up in a position where I work on a post for a few days before I post it. Running "Update Date to Last Edit" does this:

draft.createdAt = draft.modifiedAt;
draft.update();

Very ugly. Works just fine.

The last action uses Shortcuts to select a photo, place it in Working Copy in the correct month folder, and write the path back to the Draft.

image_shortcut

Honestly… this post will be the first attempt… so let's see if it even works!


Changelog
  • 2022-06-08 11:31:29 -0500
    Rename articles

  • 2021-01-05 13:02:39 -0600
    Add details about `fetch-depth`

    Thanks to @tmiller for his insight.

  • 2021-01-01 08:51:30 -0600
    fix the yaml

    I think the drafts action does something weird to `{{` when it's sent
    over urlschemes… I'll look into it.

  • 2021-01-01 08:45:14 -0600
    update tags

  • 2021-01-01 08:41:57 -0600
    Update Date

  • 2021-01-01 08:41:24 -0600
    update date to today

  • 2021-01-01 08:39:23 -0600
    fix filename

    I forgot that middleman requires this weird `.html.markdown` filename.

  • 2021-01-01 08:34:12 -0600
    Post: Building middleman using github actions

    This is my first post 100% from an iOS device!