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Initialize Git Repository

Let's talk through how a repository should be laid out if we're going to be hosting a Flask app on Heroku.

Branches

We will need a minimum of two branches. Here we specify the names that these branches will have in your Github repo, which is different from the names of the branches on Heroku:

Branches on Github:

  • heroku-pages - this branch contains the content that Heroku will host. Specifically, it contains the Flask application in a .py file, and a few other files to help Heroku determine how to run the app and what to install.

  • master - this branch contains the content used to generate the documentation and page content that is being hosted behind the Heroku attack sheep. The documentation you are reading right now is from the master branch, and was made with mkdocs.

On Heroku, we only have a single branch:

  • master (Heroku) maps to heroku-pages (Github)

Repo Layout

Let's talk about the layout of the repository.

If you wish to build the site in order to deploy it to Heroku, you should clone the master branch (preparing to make the content for your attack sheep-protected page):

$ git clone -b master https://git.charlesreid1.com/charlesreid1/github-heroku-attack-rabbits.git
$ cd github-heroku-attack-rabbits

Once you are inside the master branch, clone the repo again, but this time clone the heroku-pages branch, and clone it to the site/ folder:

$ git clone -b heroku-pages https://git.charlesreid1.com/charlesreid1/github-heroku-attack-rabbits.git site
$ cd site

Now you will want to set up the Heroku remote:

$ heroku git:remote -a my-cool-project

The layout should now be:

my-cool-project-repo/   <-- my-cool-project repo pointing to master branch

        docs/            \
            index.md      |
            heroku.md     | <-- mkdocs files 
            ...           |     (can use any static content generator:
                          |      pelican, sphinx, etc.)
        mkdocs.yml       /

        site/           <-- my-cool-project repo pointing to heroku-pages branch

            Procfile           \ 
            github.py           | <-- heroku python app files
            requirements.txt    |     (can also use ruby, php, js, etc.)
            runtime.txt         |     (can also use ruby, php, js, etc.)
            ...                / 

            content/           \   
                index.html      | <-- static content hosted by Flask
                sitemap.xml     | 
                ...            /

Workflow

Once you have things set up according to the instructions and diagram above, you're ready to run the push-to-deploy workflow and start running your secret site on Heroku.