repository-sync

repository-sync is a tool designed to keep two repositories—one private, one public—entirely in sync. Private commits are squashed into a single commit to avoid leaking information. Similarly, every public commit is brought over to the private repository, so that none of the history is lost.

Setup

Deploy

First, deploy this code to a hosting environment such as Heroku.

Alternatively, you can use docker-compose (the app will listen on port 4567):

docker-compose build
docker-compose up

docker-compose expects a .env with environment variables properly configured. See the environment variables available defined below. For example:

GITHUB.COM_MACHINE_USER_TOKEN=aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
GITHUB.ACME.COM_MACHINE_USER_TOKEN=bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
[email protected]
MACHINE_USER_NAME="GitHub Sync"
RACK_ENV=production
REDISTOGO_URL=redis://redis:6379/
SECRET_TOKEN=cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

Between two GitHub.com repositories

Next, you'll need to set a few environment variables:

On your private repository, set a webhook to point to the /sync?sync_method=squash endpoint. Pass in one more parameter, dest_repo, the name of the public repository to update. It might look like:

http://repository-sync.someserver.com/sync?sync_method=squash&dest_repo=ourorg/public

Don't forget to fill out the Secret field with your secret token!

On your public repository, set a webhook to point to the /sync?sync_method=merge endpoint. Pass in just one parameter, dest_repo, the name of the private repository to update. It might look like:

http://repository-sync.someserver.com/sync?dest_repo=ourorg/private

Don't forget to fill out the Secret field with your secret token!

You'll notice these two endpoints are practically the same. They are! The only difference is the value of the sync_method parameter. When hitting an endpoint with the sync_method=squash path parameter, this tool will perform a --squash merge to hide the commit history.

There is a third, highly experimental, sync method. sync_method=replace_contents will completely remove the public repository contents and replace them with the contents of the private repository. Its use is not recommended.

Between a GitHub.com repository and a GitHub Enterprise repository

First, deploy this code to Heroku (or some other server you own).

Next, you'll need to set a few environment variables:

On your private repository, set a webhook to point to the /sync endpoint. Pass in just one parameter, dest_repo, the name of the public repository to update. It might look like http://repository-sync.someserver.com/sync?sync_method=squash&dest_repo=ourorg/public. Don't forget to fill out the Secret field with your secret token!

On your public repository, set a webhook to point to the /sync endpoint. Pass in two parameters:

• dest_repo, the name of the private repository to update
• destination_hostname, the hostname of your GitHub Enterprise installation

It might look like:

http://repository-sync.someserver.com/sync?dest_repo=ourorg/private&destination_hostname=our.ghe.io

Don't forget to fill out the Secret field with your secret token!

You'll notice these two endpoints are practically the same. They are! The only difference is that, when hitting an endpoint with the squash path parameter, this tool will perform a --squash merge to hide the commit history.

Between a GitHub Enterprise repository and a GitHub Enterprise repository

First, deploy this code to Heroku (or some other server you own).

Next, you'll need to set a few environment variables:

On your private repository, set a webhook to point to the /sync endpoint. Pass in two parameters:

• dest_repo, the name of the public repository to update
• destination_hostname, the hostname of your GitHub Enterprise installation

It might look like:

http://repository-sync.someserver.com/sync?sync_method=squash&dest_repo=ourorg/public&destination_hostname=our.ghe.io

Don't forget to fill out the Secret field with your secret token!

On your public repository, set a webhook to point to the /sync endpoint. Pass in two parameters:

• dest_repo, the name of the private repository to update
• destination_hostname, the hostname of your GitHub Enterprise installation

It might look like:

http://repository-sync.someserver.com/sync?dest_repo=ourorg/private&destination_hostname=our.ghe.io

Don't forget to fill out the Secret field with your secret token!

Between a GitHub Enterprise repository and a GitHub Enterprise repository on different instances

To synchronize GitHub Enterprise repositories across different GitHub Enterprise instances, follow the previous guide but configure the machine token like this:

In that case, GHE_MACHINE_USER_TOKEN variable is not used.

Customizing messaging

Believe it or not, there are a few more environment variables you can set! These determine the text used by repository-sync when creating commit messages and pull requests. They are also dependent on the name of the destination repository. All of these values are optional.

For the examples below, we'll assuming repository-sync is committing into a repository called gjtorikian/this-test. Because environment variables cannot use the / or - characters, you must substitute those characters in the repository name as _. The repository name should also be capitalized. Using our example repository, that would mean a prefix of GJTORIKIAN_THIS_TEST.

• #{safe_destination_repo}_COMMIT_MESSAGE: This determines the commit message to use when committing into your public repository. Example: GJTORIKIAN_THIS_TEST_COMMIT_MESSAGE.

• #{safe_destination_repo}_PR_TITLE: This determines the title of the PR that's opened into either repository. Example: GJTORIKIAN_THIS_TEST_PR_TITLE. The default string is 'Sync changes from upstream repository'.

• #{safe_destination_repo}_PR_BODY: This determines the body text of the PR that's opened into either repository. Example: GJTORIKIAN_THIS_TEST_PR_BODY. The default string is a listing of the added, modified, and removed files in the PR.

Removing the PR creation

If, instead of a new pull request, you'd like repository-sync to just merge straight into a branch, pass in the default_branch option to the webhook URL. For example, it might look like:

http://repository-sync.someserver.com/sync?dest_repo=ourorg/public&default_branch=master