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Hosting Private Github Submodules to Vercel

3 min read

I was trying to make the content repo of this website, a private gitsubmodule of the main repo which is public

  • But the problem was I was hosting my website on vercel and it doesnt seem to work when I make my submodules private, it works good when they are public

So I found a work around, so all of this will happen on vercel

  • 1st we need to create a temp folder and initialise git, then using github secret token, we can pull the github private repo into that temp folder
  • then copy all the information into the submodule folder and delete the temp folder

Here is the script to do that

# github submodule repo address without https:// prefix
 
SUBMODULE_GITHUB=github.com/swarajbachu/obsidian-notes
 
  
 
# .gitmodules submodule path
 
SUBMODULE_PATH=content
 
  
 
# github access token is necessary
 
# add it to Environment Variables on Vercel
 
if [ "$GITHUB_ACCESS_TOKEN" == "" ]; then
 
echo "Error: GITHUB_ACCESS_TOKEN is empty"
 
exit 1
 
fi
 
  
 
# stop execution on error - don't let it build if something goes wrong
 
set -e
 
  
 
# get submodule commit
 
output=`git submodule status --recursive` # get submodule info
 
no_prefix=${output#*-} # get rid of the prefix
 
COMMIT=${no_prefix% *} # get rid of the suffix
 
  
 
# set up an empty temporary work directory
 
rm -rf tmp || true # remove the tmp folder if exists
 
mkdir tmp # create the tmp folder
 
cd tmp # go into the tmp folder
 
  
 
# checkout the current submodule commit
 
git init # initialise empty repo
 
git remote add origin https://$GITHUB_ACCESS_TOKEN@$SUBMODULE_GITHUB # add origin of the submodule
 
git fetch --depth=1 origin main # fetch only the required version
 
git checkout main # checkout on the right commit
 
  
 
# move the submodule from tmp to the submodule path
 
cd .. # go folder up
 
rm -rf tmp/.git # remove .git
 
mv tmp/* $SUBMODULE_PATH/ # move the submodule to the submodule path
 
  
 
# clean up
 
rm -rf tmp # remove the tmp folder

After this I overwritten the build script in the vercel ./submodule.sh && npx quartz build

I just wanted it on vercel that is the reason, I wrote this, oresle you can also write something into your package.json and then replace with that for more cleaner approach ( i mean doesnt matter, do as you please )

then its done

But only one problem, this was specific to me actually,

  • So when I wont commit to the main repo regularly, but I kinda make changes to this submodule repo, but the build function will only run if I make changes in the main repo
  • So I just made a webhook to solve this
  1. Go to your submodule repository on GitHub.
  2. Navigate to Settings → Webhooks → Add webhook.
  3. Enter the Payload URL provided by Vercel (can be found in your Vercel project settings). a. For this Navigate to your project → Settings → git then scroll down to Deploy hooks b. Give it any name and also mention the branch for me I wanted it on main c. it will look something like this https://api.vercel.com/v1/integrations/deploy/prj_1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/OUyMxthUPZ
  4. Set the Content type to application/json.
  5. Optionally, set up a secret for added security.
  6. Choose to send push events.
  7. Add the webhook.

Now you are good to go :)

lets fucking go we do it

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