I’ve been using GitHub Pages and I’m wondering about the proper usage of the gh-pages branch. It seems odd to have this branch separate from the master branch. The commit status shown in the branch overview for gh-pages seems confusing compared to other branches. It appears that having a branch just for hosting isn’t standard Git practices. Is this the intended functionality, or am I missing something? Should I routinely merge the gh-pages branch with the master branch, or is it better to keep them apart? I want to ensure I’m following the correct GitHub Pages deployment process.
totally! merging can get messy. Just keep gh-pages for the live site and master for your code. it’s way easier and follows GitHub’s best practices.
Had this same confusion when I started using GitHub Pages two years ago. Here’s what clicked for me: gh-pages isn’t a regular branch you merge - it’s your production deployment target. The weird commit history happens because gh-pages gets force-pushed during deployments, especially with build tools. This breaks normal Git flow patterns. I treat gh-pages as write-only through automation. Never manually edit it or try merging it back. Just use GitHub Actions to build from master and push the compiled output to gh-pages automatically. This eliminated all the branch confusion and made deployments way more reliable.
The separation is intentional and correct. I’ve worked with GitHub Pages a lot, and you definitely want to keep gh-pages separate from master. Here’s why: gh-pages holds your compiled files - the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that browsers actually serve. Master has your source code, config files, and dev assets. If you merge them, you’ll pollute your main codebase with generated files and create messy conflicts. Those commit differences you’re seeing? Totally normal. The gh-pages branch gets updated through automated builds or manual deployments, not regular dev commits. If you’re using a static site generator, set up GitHub Actions to auto-deploy to gh-pages when you push to master. You’ll keep things clean while making your workflow smoother.
You’re hitting a super common pain point. Yeah, keeping branches separate is right, but there’s a way cleaner approach than dealing with this manually.
I ditched gh-pages branches completely once I automated everything. The real problem isn’t merging - it’s that you’re manually handling deployment when you could just automate the whole thing.
Set up automation that watches your master branch, builds your site, and pushes to gh-pages automatically. No more weird commit histories or branch confusion.
I’ve done this on tons of projects and it kills all that friction. You push to master, automation does everything else. The gh-pages branch just becomes invisible.
Latenode makes this deployment automation dead simple. Create a workflow that triggers on GitHub pushes, runs your build, and deploys to gh-pages without touching anything manually.
don’t merge them! I made that mistake early on and it was a nightmare to untangle. gh-pages gets auto-generated, so merging creates conflicts every time you deploy. Keep master for development and leave gh-pages alone except for deployments.
Keeping them separate is definitely right, but here’s what clicked for me about why this feels so weird at first. The confusion happens because you think of gh-pages like a normal Git branch, but it’s really just storage for deployment stuff. I kept trying to use regular branching strategies on it, which made everything seem broken. gh-pages doesn’t follow normal Git workflows because it’s doing something completely different than your source code branches. Once I started seeing it as a publish target instead of a dev branch, everything made way more sense. Those commit differences you’re seeing? That’s actually the point - they show deployment events, not code changes.