Update git.md (“Hosting Considerations”)

[brycewray]

Adds details related to obtaining accurate .GitInfo data when using hosts’ native interfaces. Information accurate as of 2022-05-08.

[brycewray]

One correction to that. The closing command (in the code example) should, of course, be:

git fetch --unshallow && hugo --minify

[jmooring]

@brycewray

Can you rework this information into a table with footnotes? Something like:

Hosting service	Clone depth	Configurable
Cloudflare Pages	shallow	✔️1
GitHub Pages	deep	✔️
GitLab Pages	42	✔️
Netlify	deep	❌
Some other service	2	❌

Footnotes

1. Preface your build command with git fetch --unshallow ↩

[brycewray]

@jmooring Have edited the file to that effect. Not sure if it'll appear in what you can see. If not, let me know and I'll do a fresh PR with the changes, which amount to the following, below. N.B.: I didn't put in the "Configurable" column because it seemed unnecessary for what I ended up doing.

Hosting Considerations

On the site host, your repository must be "deep-cloned," so the returned .GitInfo data will be accurate. Otherwise, your site may display only data from your latest commit. Controlling the cloning level isn't possible in most hosts' native interfaces but, instead, must be done through CI/CD (e.g., a GitHub Action or GitLab CI/CD). See the following table:

Hosting service	Clone depth
Cloudflare Pages	Shallow1
DigitalOcean App Platform	Deep
GitHub Pages	Deep
GitLab Pages	Shallow2
Netlify	Deep
Vercel	Shallow

Footnotes

1. To configure a Cloudflare Pages site for deep cloning, preface the site's normal Hugo build command with git fetch --unshallow && (e.g., git fetch --unshallow && hugo). ↩

2. Set the GitLab Runner's clone depth as explained in the GitLab documentation. ↩

[jmooring]

The idea behind the "configurable" green check mark is... yeah, the default for x is shallow, but that's not a problem, and here's why (footnote).

With GitHub Pages, if you use https://github.com/actions/checkout#checkout-v3, the default is shallow, not deep. The example workflow in our documentation sets the fetch depth. Maybe you want to point to that.

The GitLab example in our documentation includes the depth setting, so you might want to point to that as well.

[brycewray]

@jmooring Have edited as per your last comment.

(...except I forgot the GitLab example link; will make shortly. Trying to do two things at once. Sorry.)

[jmooring]

Last change...

[jmooring]

Suggested change

	[^GHP]: You can configure the GitHub Runner to do a deep clone by specifying `fetch-depth: 0` in the applicable "checkout" step of your workflow file, as shown in the Hugo documentation's [example workflow file](/hosting-and-deployment/hosting-on-github/#procedure).
	[^GHP]: You can configure the GitHub Action to do a deep clone by specifying `fetch-depth: 0` in the applicable "checkout" step of your workflow file, as shown in the Hugo documentation's [example workflow file](/hosting-and-deployment/hosting-on-github/#procedure).

[brycewray]

Made the change directly in the file rather than accepting the suggestion because I still needed to add the GL-related Hugo link you mentioned earlier. Done.

[jmooring]

This is great; thanks. Sorry it took me a while to get to it.

[brycewray]

This is great; thanks. Sorry it took me a while to get to it.

Sorry it took me so many iterations to give you what you wanted! 😄