How to merge a Git branch using a different identity?

Question

We are using Git for a website project where the develop branch will be the source of the test server, and the master branch will serve as the source for the live, production site. The reason being to keep the git-related steps (switching branches, pushing and pulling) to a minimum for the intended user population. It should be possible for these (not extremely technical) users to run a script that will merge develop into master , after being alerted that this would be pushed to live. master cannot be modified by normal users, only one special user can do the merge.

This is where I'm not sure how to integrate this identity change into my code below:

https://gist.github.com/jfix/9fb7d9e2510d112e83ee49af0fb9e27f

I'm using the simple-git npm library. But more generally, I'm not sure whether what I want to do is actually possible as I can't seem to find information about this anywhere.

My intention would be of course to use a Github personal token instead of a password.

Answer 1

Git itself doesn't do anything about user or permission management. So, the short answer is, don't try to do anything sneaky. Rather, use Github's user accounts they way they were intended.

What I suggest is to give this special user their own Github account, with their own copy of the repo. Let's say the main repo is at https://github.com/yourteam/repo , and the special repo is at https://github.com/special/repo .

The script will pull changes from the team repo's develop branch, and merge this into it's own master branch and push to https://github.com/special/repo .

Then, it will push its changes to the team's master branch. This step can optionally be a forced push, since no one else is supposed to mess with master, anyway. (In case someone does, using a forced push here means they have to fix their local repo to match the team repo later on, rather than having the script fail until someone fixes the team repo.)

At the same time, your CI software will notice that master has changed at https://github.com/special/repo , and will publish as you normally would. This is the linchpin: the CI doesn't pay attention to the team repo, so although your team has permission to change it, those changes don't make it into production.

This special user will need commit access to the team repo, in addition to its own GitHub repo. The easiest way is probably to use an SSH key, and run the git push command from the script, rather than trying to use the GitHub API.