WordPress GitHub Sync Plugin

A WordPress plugin to sync content with a GitHub repository (or Jekyll site)

Ever wish you could collaboratively author content for your WordPress site (or expose change history publicly and accept pull requests from your readers)?

Looking to tinker with Jekyll, but wish you could use WordPress’s best-of-breed web editing interface instead of Atom? (gasp!)

Well, now you can! Introducing WordPress GitHub Sync!

WordPress GitHub Sync does three things:

1. Allows content publishers to version their content in GitHub, exposing “who made what change when” to readers
2. Allows readers to submit proposed improvements to WordPress-served content via GitHub’s Pull Request model
3. Allows non-technical writers to draft and edit a Jekyll site in WordPress’s best-of-breed editing interface

WordPress GitHub sync might be able to do some other cool things:

• Allow teams to collaboratively write and edit posts using GitHub (e.g., pull requests, issues, comments)
• Allow you to sync the content of two different WordPress installations via GitHub
• Allow you to stage and preview content before “deploying” to your production server

How it works

The sync action is based on two hooks:

1. A per-post sync fired in response to WordPress’s save_post hook which pushes content to GitHub
2. A sync of all changed files triggered by GitHub’s push webhook (outbound API call)

Using the WordPress Dashboard

1. Navigate to the ‘Add New’ in the plugins dashboard
2. Search for ‘WordPress GitHub Sync’
3. Click ‘Install Now’
4. Activate the plugin on the Plugin dashboard

Uploading in WordPress Dashboard

1. Download wordpress-github-sync.zip from the WordPress plugins repository.
2. Navigate to the ‘Add New’ in the plugins dashboard
3. Navigate to the ‘Upload’ area
4. Select wordpress-github-sync.zip from your computer
5. Click ‘Install Now’
6. Activate the plugin in the Plugin dashboard

Using FTP

1. Download wordpress-github-sync.zip
2. Extract the wordpress-github-sync directory to your computer
3. Upload the wordpress-github-sync directory to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
4. Activate the plugin in the Plugin dashboard

Installing from Source

Install the plugin and activate it via WordPress’s plugin settings page.

1. cd wp-content/plugins
2. git clone https://github.com/benbalter/wordpress-github-sync.git
3. cd wordpress-github-sync && composer install
4. Activate the plugin in WordPress’ Dashboard > Plugins > Installed Plugins

Configuring the plugin

1. Create a personal oauth token with the public_repo scope. If you’d prefer not to use your account, you can create another GitHub account for this.
2. Configure your GitHub host, repository, secret (defined in the next step), and OAuth Token on the WordPress GitHub sync settings page within WordPress’s administrative interface. Make sure the repository has an initial commit or the export will fail.
3. Create a WebHook within your repository with the provided callback URL and callback secret, using application/json as the content type. To set up a webhook on GitHub, head over to the Settings page of your repository, and click on Webhooks & services. After that, click on Add webhook.
4. Click Export to GitHub or if you use WP-CLI, run wp wpghs export all === from the command line, where === = the user ID you’d like to commit as.

Installation Instructions

Using the WordPress Dashboard

1. Navigate to the ‘Add New’ in the plugins dashboard
2. Search for ‘WordPress GitHub Sync’
3. Click ‘Install Now’
4. Activate the plugin on the Plugin dashboard

Uploading in WordPress Dashboard

1. Download wordpress-github-sync.zip from the WordPress plugins repository.
2. Navigate to the ‘Add New’ in the plugins dashboard
3. Navigate to the ‘Upload’ area
4. Select wordpress-github-sync.zip from your computer
5. Click ‘Install Now’
6. Activate the plugin in the Plugin dashboard

Using FTP

1. Download wordpress-github-sync.zip
2. Extract the wordpress-github-sync directory to your computer
3. Upload the wordpress-github-sync directory to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
4. Activate the plugin in the Plugin dashboard

Installing from Source

Install the plugin and activate it via WordPress’s plugin settings page.

1. cd wp-content/plugins
2. git clone https://github.com/benbalter/wordpress-github-sync.git
3. cd wordpress-github-sync && composer install
4. Activate the plugin in WordPress’ Dashboard > Plugins > Installed Plugins

Configuring the plugin

1. Create a personal oauth token with the public_repo scope. If you’d prefer not to use your account, you can create another GitHub account for this.
2. Configure your GitHub host, repository, secret (defined in the next step), and OAuth Token on the WordPress GitHub sync settings page within WordPress’s administrative interface. Make sure the repository has an initial commit or the export will fail.
3. Create a WebHook within your repository with the provided callback URL and callback secret, using application/json as the content type. To set up a webhook on GitHub, head over to the Settings page of your repository, and click on Webhooks & services. After that, click on Add webhook.
4. Click Export to GitHub or if you use WP-CLI, run wp wpghs export all === from the command line, where === = the user ID you’d like to commit as.

Markdown Support

WordPress GitHub Sync exports all posts as .md files for better display on GitHub, but all content is exported and imported as its original HTML. To enable writing, importing, and exporting in Markdown, please install and enable WP-Markdown, and WordPress GitHub Sync will use it to convert your posts to and from Markdown.

You can also activate the Markdown module from Jetpack or the standalone JP Markdown to save in Markdown and export that version to GitHub.

Importing from GitHub

WordPress GitHub Sync is also capable of importing posts directly from GitHub, without creating them in WordPress before hand. In order to have your post imported into GitHub, add this YAML Frontmatter to the top of your .md document:

--- post_title: 'Post Title' layout: post_type_probably_post published: true_or_false --- Post goes here. 

and fill it out with the data related to the post you’re writing. Save the post and commit it directly to the repository. After the post is added to WordPress, an additional commit will be added to the repository, updating the new post with the new information from the database.

Note that WordPress GitHub Sync will only import posts from the master branch. Changes on other branches will be ignored.

If WordPress GitHub Sync cannot find the author for a given import, it will fallback to the default user as set on the settings page. Make sure you set this user before you begin importing posts from GitHub. Without it set, WordPress GitHub Sync will default to no user being set for the author as well as unknown-author revisions.

Custom Post Type & Status Support

By default, WordPress GitHub Sync only exports published posts and pages. However, it provides a number of hooks in order to customize its functionality. Check out the wiki for complete documentation for these actions and filters.

If you want to export additional post types or draft posts, you’ll have to hook into the filters wpghs_whitelisted_post_types or wpghs_whitelisted_post_statuses respectively.

In wp-content, create or open the mu-plugins folder and create a plugin file there called wpghs-custom-filters.php. In it, paste and modify the below code:

<?php /** * Plugin Name: WordPress-GitHub Sync Custom Filters * Plugin URI: https://github.com/benbalter/wordpress-github-sync * Description: Adds support for custom post types and statuses * Version: 1.0.0 * Author: James DiGioia * Author URI: https://jamesdigioia.com/ * License: GPL2 */ add_filter('wpghs_whitelisted_post_types', function ($supported_post_types) { return array_merge($supported_post_types, array( // add your custom post types here 'gistpen' )); }); add_filter('wpghs_whitelisted_post_statuses', function ($supported_post_statuses) { return array_merge($supported_post_statuses, array( // additional statuses available: https://codex.wordpress.org/Post_Status 'draft' )); }); 

Add “Edit|View on GitHub” Link

If you want to add a link to your posts on GitHub, there are 4 functions WordPressGitHub Sync makes available for you to use in your themes or as part of the_content filter:

• get_the_github_view_url – returns the URL on GitHub to view the current post
• get_the_github_view_link – returns an anchor tag (<a>) with its href set the the view url
• get_the_github_edit_url – returns the URL on GitHub to edit the current post
• get_the_github_edit_link – returns an anchor tag (<a>) with its href set the the edit url

All four of these functions must be used in the loop. If you’d like to retrieve these URLs outside of the loop, instantiate a new WordPress_GitHub_Sync_Post object and call github_edit_url or github_view_url respectively on it:

// $id can be retrieved from a query or elsewhere $wpghs_post = new WordPress_GitHub_Sync_Post( $id ); $url = $wpghs_post->github_view_url(); 

If you’d like to include an edit link without modifying your theme directly, you can add one of these functions to the_content like so:

add_filter( 'the_content', function( $content ) { if( is_page() || is_single() ) { $content .= get_the_github_edit_link(); } return $content; }, 1000 ); 

Shortcodes (v >= XXXX)

If you wish to add either the bare URL or a link referencing the URL to an individual post, without editing themes, you can add a shortcode anywhere in your post;

[wpghs] 

The following optional attributes can also be included in the shortcode
* target=
+ 'view' (default) the url used will be the view URL (/blob/).
+ 'edit' the url used will be the edit URL (/edit/).
* type=
+ 'link' (default) an anchor tag (<a>) with href set to the requested URL will be inserted.
+ 'url' the the bare requested URL will be inserted.
* text=
+ '' (default) link text (where type='link', ignored otherwise) will be set to ‘View this post on GitHub’.
+ 'text' link text (where type='link', ignored otherwise) will be set to ‘text’ (the supplied text).

For example,

[wpghs target='view' type='link' text='Here is my post on GitHub'] will produce a HTML anchor tag with href set to the 'view' URL of the post on GitHub, and the link text set to 'Here is my post on GitHub', i.e. <a href="https://github.com/USERNAME/REPO/blob/master/_posts/YOURPOST.md">Here is my post on GitHub</a> 

Any or all of the attributes can be left out; defaults will take their place.

Additional Customizations

There are a number of other customizations available in WordPress GitHub Sync, including the commit message and YAML front-matter. Want more detail? Check out the wiki.

Contributing

Found a bug? Want to take a stab at one of the open issues? We’d love your help!

See the contributing documentation for details.

Prior Art

• WordPress Post Forking
• WordPress to Jekyll exporter
• Writing in public, syncing with GitHub

This change log follows the Keep a Changelog standards.

[2.0.0][]

• POSSIBLY BREAKING: Remove handling of custom post meta
  • If you were relying on WPGHS to export custom post meta, use wpghs_post_meta filter & wpghs_pre_import_meta to handle the meta yourself. See the documentation for more information.
• Switch from sanitize_title to sanitize_file_name.
  • This should ensure better fidelity to the original filename.
• Don’t export post_date if post isn’t published.
  • post_date means the time the post was published. If it’s not published, it shouldn’t have a post_date.
• Overwrite post_date from markdown, allowing remote user to modify publish date.

[1.7.5][]

• Fix plugin slug (props @gmays)

[1.7.2][]

• Fix messages (props @synchrophoto!)
• Fix Markdown when importing w/ Jetpack (props @lite3!)
• Fix bug in HTTP request on 4.6+
• Update dependencies

[1.7.0][]

• Add GitHub link shortcode (props @jonocarroll!)
• Add boot hook (props @kennyfraser!)

[1.6.1][]

• Fixed bug where post_meta with the same name as built-in meta keys were getting overwritten

[1.6.0][]

• New filters:
  • wpghs_pre_fetch_all_supported: Filter the query args before all supported posts are queried.
  • wpghs_is_post_supported: Determines whether the post is supported by importing/exporting.
• Bugfix: Set secret to password field. See #124.
• Bugfix: Fix error when importing branch-deletion webhooks.
• Bugfix: Fix “semaphore is locked” response from webhook. See #121.
• Bugfix: Correctly display import/export messages in settings page. See #127.
• Bugfix: Correctly set if post is new only when the matching ID is found in the database.

[1.5.1][]

• Added Chinese translation (props @malsony!).
• Updated German translation (props @lsinger!).
• Expire semaphore lock to avoid permanently locked install.

[1.5.0][]

• New WP-CLI command:
  • prime: Forces WPGHS to fetch the latest commit and save it in the cache.
• New filters:
  • wpghs_sync_branch: Branch the WordPress install should sync itself with.
  • wpghs_commit_msg_tag: Tag appended to the end of the commit message. Split from message with -. Used to determine if commit has been synced already.
• These two new filters allow you to use WPGHS to keep multiple sites in sync.
  • This is an advanced feature. Your configuration may or may not be fully supported. Use at your own risk.
• Eliminated some direct database calls in exchange for WP_Query usage.

[1.4.1][]

• Fix Database error handling
• Fix bug where WPGHS would interfere with other plugins’ AJAX hooks.
• Fix transient key length to <40.

1.4.0

• Major rewrite of the plugin internals.
  • Massively improved internal architecture.
  • Improved speed.
    • Upgraded caching implementation means updates happen faster.
• Line-endings are now normalize to Unix-style.
  • New filter: wpghs_line_endings to set preferred line endings.
• New filter: wpghs_pre_import_args
  • Called before post arguments are passed for an imported post.
• New filter: wpghs_pre_import_meta
  • Called before post meta is imported from a post.
• BREAKING: Remove reference to global $wpghs variable.
  • Use WordPress_GitHub_Sync::$instance instead.

[1.3.4][]

• Add German translation (props @lsinger).
• Update folder names to default to untranslated.

[1.3.3][]

• Fix api bug where API call errors weren’t getting kicked up to the calling method.

[1.3.2][]

• Fix deleting bug where posts that weren’t present in the repo were being added.

[1.3.1][]

• Re-add validation of post before exporting.
  • Fixed bug where all post types/statuses were being exported.
• Reverted busted SQL query

[1.3][]

• New Feature: Support importing posts from GitHub
• New Feature: Support setting revision and new post users on import.
  • Note: There is a new setting, please selected a default/fallback user and saved the settings.

[1.2][]

• New Feature: Support displaying an “Edit|View on GitHub” link.
• Update translation strings and implement pot file generation.
• Redirect user away from settings page page after the import/export process starts.
• Fix autoloader to be PHP 5.2 compatible.

[1.1.1][]

• Add WPGHS_Post as param to export content filter.

[1.1.0][]

• Add filters for content on import and export.

[1.0.2][]

• Hide password-protected posts from being exported to GitHub
• Create post slug if WordPress hasn’t created it yet (affects draft exporting)

[1.0.1][]

• Remove closure to enable PHP 5.2 compatibility (thanks @pdclark!)

[1.0.0][]

• Initial release
• Supports full site sync, Markdown import/export, and custom post type & status support