How to deploy a node app to azure if the node app is buried in repo directory

Question

I am trying to deploy a project to azure, via the "remote git repo" method. But in my repo, the actual node application is a few directories in. Thus, Azure does not do anything when the repo is pushed.

Is there some way to configure the azure website to run from a directory buried in the repo?

Answer 1

There's a super easy way actually. This scenario was anticipated by the Azure team and there's a good way to handle it. It's simple too.

You simply create a text file at the root of your project called .deployment. In the .deployment file you add the following text...

[config]
project = mysubfolder

When you either Git deploy or use CI to deploy from source control, the entire repository is deployed, but the .deployment file tells Kudu (that's the engine that handles your website management) where the actual website (or node project) is.

You can find more info here.

Also, check out this post where I mention an alternative strategy for project repos in case that helps.

Answer 2

This isn't so much an Azure question as a Git question. What you want to know is if there is a way to clone only a sub-directory or branch of a project. From doing some research on this just a couple of weeks ago, the best I could find were solutions for how to do a sparse clone, which does allow one to restrict the files cloned (almost there) but does so within the entire project's directory structure (denied).

A couple of related SO questions & answers which you might find helpful:

How do I clone a subdirectory only of a Git repository?

(Short answer 'no')

Checkout subdirectories in Git?

(Answer describes the sparse checkout ability).

I would love to see if a git guru might have a better answer based on updates to git, etc.

Good luck with it - I ended up just putting my node app in its own Git project as it seemed the most straightforward approach overall, though not ideal.