In this tutorial, we use GitHub Actions to deploy GitHub Pages. It works in both public and private repository. Skip to the One-command deployment section if you prefer not to upload your source folder to GitHub.

  1. Create a repo named username.github.io, where username is your username on GitHub. If you have already uploaded to other repo, rename the repo instead.
  2. Add the following highlighted lines to package.json: (skip this step if there are existing lines)
{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "hexo generate"
  },
  "hexo": {
    "version": "5.0.0"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "hexo": "^5.0.0",
    ...
  }
}
  1. Push the files of your Hexo folder to the source branch of your repository. The public/ folder is not (and should not be) uploaded by default, make sure the .gitignore file contains public/ line. The folder structure should be roughly similar to this repo, without the .gitmodules file.

  • To push source to GitHub:

    $ git push origin source
  1. Add .github/workflows/pages.yml file to your repo with the following content:
name: Pages

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - source  # default branch

jobs:
  pages:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Use Node.js 12.x
        uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: '12.x'
      - name: Cache NPM dependencies
        uses: actions/cache@v2
        with:
          path: node_modules
          key: ${{ runner.OS }}-npm-cache
          restore-keys: |
            ${{ runner.OS }}-npm-cache
      - name: Install Dependencies
        run: npm install
      - name: Build
        run: npm run build
      - name: Deploy
        uses: peaceiris/actions-gh-pages@v3
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          publish_dir: ./public
          publish_branch: master  # deploying branch
  1. Once the deployment is finished, the generated pages can be found in the master branch of your repository
  2. In your GitHub repo’s setting, navigate to “GitHub Pages” section and change Source to master branch.
  3. Check the webpage at username.github.io.

Note - if you specify a custom domain name with a CNAME, you need to add the CNAME file to the source/ folder.

Project page

If you prefer to have a project page on GitHub:

  1. Navigate to your repo on GitHub. Go to the Settings tab. Change the Repository name so your blog is available at username.github.io/repository, repository can be any name, like blog or hexo.
  2. Edit your _config.yml, change the root: value to the /<repository>/ (must starts and ends with a slash, without the brackets).
  3. Modify the following lines in .github/workflows/pages.yml:
name: Pages

on:
  push:
    branches:
-      - source  # default branch
+      - master

jobs:
  pages:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Deploy
        uses: peaceiris/actions-gh-pages@v3
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          publish_dir: ./public
-          publish_branch: master  # deploying branch
+          publish_branch: gh-pages
  1. Commit and push to master branch.

  • To push master branch to GitHub:

    $ git push origin master
  1. Once the deployment is finished, the generated pages can be found in the gh-pages branch of your repository
  2. In your GitHub repo’s setting, navigate to “GitHub Pages” section and change Source to gh-pages branch.

One-command deployment

The following instruction is adapted from one-command deployment page.

  1. Install hexo-deployer-git.
  2. Add the following configurations to _config.yml, (remove existing lines if any)
deploy:
  type: git
  repo: https://github.com/<username>/<project>
  # example, https://github.com/hexojs/hexojs.github.io
  branch: gh-pages
  1. Run hexo clean && hexo deploy.
  2. Check the webpage at username.github.io.