How do I deploy as an Insider?

[OldManUmby]

Greetings!

I recently discovered Material for MkDocs; love what I see so far. I've been playing with the installation to GitHub Pages for my hobby site; I think it will work great, so I want to use it for all my hobby sites. As such, I subscribed to the Insider program.

Now that I'm an insider, how do I deploy my GH Pages? How does VS Code and GitHub recognize me as an Insider?

I'm not a developer, but I do understand some code. When I added the Meta plugin to my YML file, it won't deploy saying that the Meta Plugin is not installed.

I've followed what instructions I could find (Using Insider > Getting Started). I don't use CLI or a local install; I just upload everything to GitHub using VS Code. Everything works except for the Insider plugins are missing for me when I deploy.

I hope my line of reasoning makes sense.

Suggestions?

[OldManUmby]

UPDATE: I realized I missed the Insider tab on the "Publishing your site" page. I updated the YML file accordingly and added the token following GiHub Secrets. However, the site will still not deploy; I get the following error ...

ERROR - Config value 'plugins': The "meta" plugin is not installed
Aborted with a configuration error!
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

If however, I remove "meta" from the site (see below), it will deploy, but it doesn't look like it is deploying the Insider edition.

plugins:
  - search
  - blog
  - meta

[alexvoss]

The message that the Meta plugin is missing indicates that you are not using the Insiders Edition there. That plugin is built into Insiders but not the public version, so it can only be missing if you use the latter. Have a look to see if you have pushed the necessary changes to the GitHub workflow.

[kamilkrzyskow]

Here is the repo: https://github.com/OldManUmby/material-for-mkdocs-template
The current error concerns the secret:

• https://github.com/OldManUmby/material-for-mkdocs-template/actions/runs/9834535928/job/27146510009#step:7:17

fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com/': No such device or address 🤔
I'm not sure if the secret token would ask for an Username 🤔... ahh

- run: pip install git+https://${insiderssecret}@github.com/squidfunk/mkdocs-material-insiders.git
env:
  GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.insiderssecret }}

change it to

- run: pip install git+https://$GH_TOKEN@github.com/squidfunk/mkdocs-material-insiders.git

or perhaps the GH_TOKEN is reserved by GitHub, change the environmental variable name to something like PRIVATE_KEY and use $PRIVATE_KEY in the URL

---

In another semi-unrelated project I do something like this:

env:
  PRIVATE_ACCESS: ${{ secrets.PRIVATE_ACCESS }}
# ...
run: git clone --depth 10 https://$GITHUB_ACTOR:$PRIVATE_ACCESS@github.com/kamilkrzyskow/

but I don't think this approach (with Username actor) is viable for general use, or for this pip install example.

[OldManUmby]

I don't think changing the code is the answer. I followed the instructions located at: squidfunk.github.io. I copy/pasted exactly what is there for Insiders; I only changed the GH_TOKEN according to the instructions. So, if the code is wrong, then everyone should be seeing this issue.

Am I creating the SECRET correctly? The instructions say: "Remember to set the GH_TOKEN environment variable to the value of your personal access token when deploying Insiders, which can be done using GitHub secrets."

So, I went to the repo here (see screenshots at the bottom) and put in a new personal access token (classic): https://github.com/OldManUmby/material-for-mkdocs-template/settings/environments

Did I do that correctly?

---

I just tried it again; this time I named the variable "GH_TOKEN" just to make sure.

  - run: pip install git+https://${GH_TOKEN}@github.com/squidfunk/mkdocs-material-insiders.git
  - run: mkdocs gh-deploy --force
env:
  GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_TOKEN }}

I got the same error again:

  × git clone --filter=blob:none --quiet 'https://****@github.com/squidfunk/mkdocs-material-insiders.git' /tmp/pip-req-build-edcnbydp did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 128
  ╰─> See above for output.
  
  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
error: subprocess-exited-with-error

SUGGESTIONS?

---

[kamilkrzyskow]

I don't think changing the code is the answer. I followed the instructions located at: squidfunk.github.io. I copy/pasted exactly what is there for Insiders; I only changed the GH_TOKEN according to the instructions. So, if the code is wrong, then everyone should be seeing this issue.

Not true since you changed GH_TOKEN into insiderssecret only in the URL.

The values in red need to match.

I just tried it again; this time I named the variable "GH_TOKEN" just to make sure.

Good, but notice how you're correctly using the secrets context in ${{ secrets.GH_TOKEN }}, but have set the GH_TOKEN as a normal not encrypted variable, which you later blurred out. You're supposed to set the secret above.

[OldManUmby]

Ok, I'll give that a try and let you know. If that's the answer, then the instructions are wrong, they specifically state Enviroment Variable, not Enviroment Secret. :)

BRB.

[OldManUmby]

In the screenshot above, if you click on "Manage environmental secrets", it takes you to ...

... and if you click "New environment" you get this ...

I think you can see the confusion. Here is what mine looks like ...

Here is where I got my Token from ...

But I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. It appears I have set up everything correctly at this point. Yet the error indicates an issue with ...

  × git clone --filter=blob:none --quiet 'https://****@github.com/squidfunk/mkdocs-material-insiders.git' /tmp/pip-req-build-edcnbydp did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 128
  ╰─> See above for output.

[kamilkrzyskow]

Still no changes on your GitHub actions, there is still the one from 5 hours ago at the top, where is the new action run?
I will link my previous comment again:

#7336 (reply in thread)

as perhaps the notification only lead you to the one above about the secrets 😅 @OldManUmby

Thanks for the explanation on the subject of the missing page with the environment, I personally never used environments, so perhaps some other organization (where I have admin right has them), can't help you with that. I create secretes directly with the second option:

• https://docs.github.com/en/actions/security-guides/using-secrets-in-github-actions#creating-secrets-for-a-repository
  

As for the place where you got the token, the classic token is the one you want 👍
It says it never was used this confirms that there is either misconfiguration or the action didn't run.
I think everything is setup correctly now, just that you need to run the action again ✌️

[OldManUmby]

Ok. I'll create a "New Repository secret" and see where that gets me. I'll let you know.

BRB.

[kamilkrzyskow]

I didn't say that you need to do it. I just mentioned as this could be a "variable" unknown element in our process, if the new action run would still fail, then this would be a next step to take.

But you did build your site successfully, so no need to change any more settings @OldManUmby:

• https://github.com/OldManUmby/material-for-mkdocs-template/actions/runs/9846286063

Congrats on the perseverance 🤩 💪

---

But there is another issue now with the github-pages environement 🤔

• https://github.com/OldManUmby/material-for-mkdocs-template/actions/runs/9846293823

[OldManUmby]

Ok then, the YML finally deploys ok 👍 ... THX for that! But that means the instructions could be improved and changed from "Environment Variable" to "Repository Secret".

However, as you've seen, there is a new Error in the next step: "pages build and deployment" ...

Neither one of these is very helpful. LOL.

[OldManUmby]

ALL FIXED!!!

I simply unpublished my GH Pages and ran the action again; everything ran good.

I had to add the "meta" plugin statement in the YML, and my meta.yml files are now working.

THX so much for your help!!!

[kamilkrzyskow]

However, as you've seen, there is a new Error in the next step: "pages build and deployment" ...

So at this point I had to stop being the backseat gamer and had to redo it myself, to see what is happening.
Here is the example template:

• https://github.com/kamilkrzyskow/test-insider-token

and here is a video after it going over the settings. After the successful deployment I have a github-pages environment that was automatically created, so likely this is being accessed by the pages-build-deployment. Perhaps you have removed this environment? or have changed some ruleset, when creating the secret?

nvidia_firefox_8hvv0Q8k1w_edit.mp4

GitHub has a limit of 10MB for videos, and the video was 10,6... so making it work was a struggle...

[kamilkrzyskow]

ALL FIXED!!!

Great work 💪