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Using Netlify CMS with Github Actions

After enjoying the full Netlify ecosystem for the past year, I've come up against their recent changes in build times for free accounts.

Given the recent progression of Github Actions to broader release, I figured I'd give it a shot to move builds back to Github but maintain support for Netlify CMS as a GUI for editing site content.

This ended up being quite the hassle.

So, I've documented the final fix below.

static/admin/config.yml

Update the configuration of Netlify CMS in the repo.

Before

backend:
  name: git-gateway
  branch: master

After

backend:
  name: github
  repo: adrw/cook
  site_domain: cook.alexanders.xyz
  branch: master

Netlify

  • Turn off Netlify Identity (if used).
  • In Deploys, stop auto-publishing to prevent the site instance from contributing to your monthly build minutes.
  • In Settings/Build & Deploy, in Deploy contexts, turn off deploy previews.
  • In Settings/Access Control, add Github as an OAuth authentication provider. You'll need to set up a new OAuth app in Github settings to get the secret values.
  • In Settings/Domain management, add the value you used for site_domain in static/admin/config.yml as a custom domain. This will allow Netlify's redirect after auth to correctly redirect to the correct domain.

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