Static content for GitHub Pages

Content (e.g. images, PDFs, HTML) in GitHub Pages repositories consume 3x storage

• original
• copied into: ./_site/
• also in: .git/objects/pack/

Moving static content to a separate GitHub repository can reduce:

• storage overhead
• GitHub Pages build time
• provided that appropriate work-arounds are employed

Implementation:

• This technique is sometimes called a GitHub Pages project site.
• For code repositories, put html in a separate folder, e.g. docs/ with .nojekyll,
  and change Branch folder from / (root):
  

  • $ rm _config.yml Gemfile
    $ touch .nojekyll
    $ ls -al
    total 98
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep 13 14:53 .
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep 12 07:37 ..
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep 13 13:24 .git
    -rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None    66 Sep 12 07:39 .gitattributes
    -rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None    56 Sep 12 07:39 .gitignore
    -rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None     0 Sep 13 12:44 .nojekyll
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Aug 16 10:26 AT-LP140XP
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Aug 16 10:26 Canon
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Aug 16 10:26 Carver
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Aug 16 10:26 ColorRendering
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Aug 16 10:26 ESP32
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep 12 15:14 GitHubW11
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep 10 13:52 HTML
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep 12 10:32 ImageProcessing
    -rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None  1094 Sep 12 07:39 LICENSE
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Aug 16 10:26 Mastodon
    -rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None  1903 Sep 12 15:51 README.md
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep 12 07:53 SL-7
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep 10 08:47 SimHub
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Aug 22 07:23 TThistory
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep 12 09:27 altec
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Aug 16 10:26 covid
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Aug 16 10:26 images
    -rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None  5328 Sep 13 14:47 index.html
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep 12 07:49 microscope
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep  9 07:33 network
    -rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None  1444 Sep 13 14:50 static.html
    drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None     0 Sep 12 15:38 story
    

  • Alternative attempted and rejected:  static.yml as a Custom Action
    This worked only for index.html in the root folder.