Question: promote a deploy as the main deploy? about actions-netlify

[rstacruz]

I took some screenshots of my settings. Might help with updating documentation.

[rstacruz]

I was looking at the netlify cli and found that you can't specify alias and prod at the same time.

› yarn netlify deploy --dir public --alias v2020 --prod --message 'Manual'

   Error: --prod and --alias flags cannot be used at the same time

Removing alias from the configuration works - the deployment now becomes the "main" deploy :)

[nwtgck]

@rstacruz Hi!

Your "main deployment" is called "production deployment" in this action. You can use production-branch: master to deploy every commit on master branch to my-site.netlify.app. You can also specify production-deploy: ${{ some condition }} to control the "production deployment", so production-deploy: true means every commit to every branch deploys my-site.netlify.app.

To know the reason why "production deployment" is used, you can see the discussion on #102 (comment). But your word, "main" is very good. Some day we can deprecate "production-ooo" and use "main-ooo".

[rstacruz]

Thanks! I tried setting production-branch: master and production-deploy: true, but it didn't quite work (https://github.com/rstacruz/til/blob/d152a20914842fc758ffbf67ab713bce7ed2e091/.github/workflows/build.yml). I'll try to investigate some more.

[nwtgck]

@rstacruz I can see https://rstacruz-tilnext.netlify.app on the commit comment. Is it the main deploy?

(from: rstacruz/til-2020@d152a20#commitcomment-40210621 )

[rstacruz]

Yeah - however I think it's not showing up because I turned off builds in Netlify maybe? rstacruz-tilnext.netlify.app still shows an old version right now 🤔, though the other URL is okay.

I think this might be a problem on my end of configuration, don't worry too much, just thought I'd let you know the caveats I'm running into :)

[rstacruz]

I think this may be the source of my issue. Netlify has a "auto publishing" feature under the Deploys tab. It has to be turned on to publish builds.

Here's what the settings would look like if it was off:

The only way to edit this setting is through the Deploys tab. Note that the setting will be invisible if Builds are off... in which case, builds have to be turned back on, then enable auto-publishing, then disable builds after that. If builds are off, it will look like this:

Turning this on only fixed pushing to v2020--rstacruz-tilnext.netlify.app for me, but not the main site (rstacruz-tilnext.netlify.app) unfortunately.

[nwtgck]

@rstacruz Unfortunately, I could understand your situation well. Could you tell me "Production branch" in the "Deploy contexts" on "Build & deploy"? Here is my setting.

Navigation: Settings > Build & deploy > Deploy contexts

[rstacruz]

Oh hilarious, I just did a very similar thing just now (set it to a non-existent branch)! I'll play around with it and report back when I get to my laptop.

[rstacruz]

Would you accept a PR to throw an error when alias is used when production-deploy: true is also given?

I've also found that disabling builds on Netlify should be okay. The non-existent-branch workaround didn't seem like it was necessary.

[nwtgck]

@rstacruz
First, thank you so much for your reporting and investigation! Deployment related to "production" deploy is very important thing.

Would you accept a PR to throw an error when alias is used when production-deploy: true is also given?

Here are candidates to solve this problem when alias: ... and draft === false (internal implementation, it means "production deploy").

• Throw error
• Ignore "alias" deploy and do "production" deploy only
• Do both "alias" deploy and "production" deploy (run await netlifyClient.deploy() twice internally)

"Throw error" is good to notify users and correct their usages. But, fail of CI might make GitHub Actions users uncomfortable because "production" deploy, which is very important and is triggered in a specific condition usually.

"Ignore alias" and notify users with warning is also a candidate not to fail the CI and deploy the important "production".

Deploying both may be our expectation. Although run await netlifyClient.deploy() twice internally, it may be what we should.

[nwtgck]

Should we change the title?

[rstacruz]

Should we change the title?

Feel free to edit the title to what you feel is best :)

[rstacruz]

The behaviour is up to you, but my personal preference is to throw an error.

• it's least surprising for those who use netlify-cli since it mirrors its behaviour
• deploying twice will make 2 deploys show up, making it a bit surprising

My second preference would be to let it through and show a warning ("warning: ignoring 'alias'. Aliases are not supported in production mode").

... Just my 2 cents as a casual netlify user - I'd be happy with whatever you decide :)

[devotox]

@rstacruz @nwtgck - Just ran into this exact problem!

I would say if its a production build then it does not need to be built twice. just ignore the alias and not show the second URL either

[nwtgck]

@rstacruz @devotox

Thank you for your patience. I'll solve this problem in #260 .

[devotox]

@nwtgck Wow you are quick!

[nwtgck]

@rstacruz @devotox

I released 1.1.6 to fix this problem. Let me know when you find a problem!