To streamline my website development process, I typically start by working on the code locally and then pushing it to bitbucket. Once completed, I clone the site to the hosting server and launch it. However, when I need to update the hosting site while continuing to work on it, I follow the usual procedure of sending the code to bitbucket and then accessing the hosting via SSH to pull the changes from bitbucket.

Doing these repetitive steps is becoming exhausting. Is there a way to automate this process, allowing me to keep the hosting code up to date without performing these two manual actions? It would be great if there were a more efficient solution for this workflow.

Yes, there are several ways to automate the process and make your website development workflow more efficient. One approach is to use a Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) system.

CI/CD systems like Jenkins, Travis CI, or GitLab CI/CD can help automate the deployment process by integrating with your version control system (e.g., Bitbucket) and hosting server. Here's a high-level overview of how it could work:

1. Set up a CI/CD pipeline: Configure your CI/CD system to build and test your code whenever changes are pushed to the repository. The pipeline can include steps like compiling the code, running tests, generating artifacts, etc.

2. Deploy to a staging environment: After successful builds, you can automatically deploy the code to a staging environment or a separate server for testing purposes. This will ensure that everything works as expected before deploying to the production environment.

3. Automated deployments: Once the code has been tested in the staging environment, you can configure your CI/CD system to automatically trigger a deployment to the production environment. This can include steps like pulling the changes from the repository and updating the hosting server via SSH.

By automating these steps, you can reduce the manual effort required to keep your hosting code up to date. It also adds the benefit of continuous integration, allowing you to catch any issues early on during the development process.

In addition to setting up a CI/CD pipeline, here are a few more tips to further streamline your website development process:

1. Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Consider using infrastructure provisioning tools like Terraform or AWS CloudFormation to define your hosting environment. By treating your infrastructure as code, you can easily spin up new server instances and configure them consistently.

2. Containerization: Dockerize your application to create lightweight, portable containers that can run consistently across different environments. This allows you to avoid potential issues related to differences in server configurations.

3. Orchestration: Use container orchestration systems like Kubernetes or Docker Swarm for managing your containers at scale. These tools enable you to automate deployment, scaling, and management of your application across multiple servers.

4. Continuous Testing: Implement automated testing practices to catch bugs and issues early in the development process. This could include unit tests, integration tests, and even end-to-end tests to ensure the functionality and performance of your website.

5. Infrastructure Monitoring: Set up monitoring and alerting systems (e.g., Prometheus, Nagios, or Datadog) to track the health and performance of your hosting infrastructure. This helps you proactively identify and address any issues before they impact your users.

I am employing rsync, not as a substitute, but rather in conjunction with mercurial. It serves as a method for carrying out swift updates.

To enhance convenience, I devised the update.sh script and placed it in the project's root directory:

rsync -vzPurp --exclude 'files' ./* user@IP:/home/path/to/desired/directory

I believe that utilizing both rsync and mercurial can provide a comprehensive solution for managing project updates and ensuring efficiency in data synchronization. By combining these tools, developers can leverage the strengths of each to achieve their desired outcomes effectively. Moreover, creating automation scripts like update.sh can further streamline the process and enhance convenience.

In addition to the hooks provided by Bitbucket, there is no local post-push hook in Git. So, there is no need to log in via SSH to the hosting to pull out changes. You can automate this process using non-interactive SSH sessions that allow you to execute commands. For example:

ssh <remotehost> git pull --work-tree=<working_copy> --git-dir=<working_copy>/.git

This command will connect to the <remotehost>, perform a git pull for the specified directory, and then exit. With Git's aliases, you can create an alias like:

git config --global alias.push_and_deploy '!git push <bitbucket> && ssh <remotehost> git pull --work-tree=<working_copy> --git-dir=<working_copy>/.git'

Now, when you execute the command git push_and_deploy, it will perform all the actions specified in the alias. This means that the code will be pushed to Bitbucket, and if the push is successful, it will be immediately pulled on the hosting.