Jekyll and Git Submodule

As I invest more and more into building my Jekyll Site on Github Pages, I started to think to split my posts directory into a different git submodule.

• If someone want to use my Jekyll modifications they can download the repository without the noise coming from the posts commit.
• If later on I want to use another blogging tool, I can point them the posts repository.

I have recorded my journey here. However it soon became apparent that it was not working as I had hoped

• A new post into the post repository, doesn’t automatically build the jekyll site. Making the building step a bit more complicated. This can be remidied by using githook.
• There’s no way of building the Github Pages without creating new commit to the parent repository. This means soon the jekyll repository will be flooded with meaningless commit.

Quoted from github

If your GitHub Pages site repository contains submodules, they will automatically be pulled in when the Page is built.

There is also a github support link on the page above. Try it, they were helpful.

That’s all folks. So Jekyll, Github Pages, and Git Submodule may not be as smooth as you think.