Allow control over git exclude behavior

[ThePendulum]

Hi,

I am using Vike as the base for a generic company framework that should power multiple separate sites within our network, each with its own pages, components, styles, components, etc. One of the most straight-forward ways to do this seems to be to simply drop a directory with all the local files bundled inside the framework installation, as Vike will still find the page files.

However, our framework and the individual sites should each have their own git repository, the sites shouldn't be committed to the generic framework's repo. This is where Vike's git-based file indexing is causing some issues, as adding the local site directory to .gitignore, registering it as a submodule and possibly .git/info/exclude all result in Vike ignoring the contents of that directory. I think it can be narrowed down to git ls-files --exclude-standard being hardcoded in crawlPlusFiles.js, and it would be helpful to have an option to adjust these parameters.

Other ideas for allowing local templates are welcome. I've played around with symlinks, import rewrites and all sorts, but so far this seems to be the path of least resistance, bar this one quibble. Most of the potential alternatives I could come up with also still called for a way to exclude local files in git, while still allowing them to be found by Vike.

Thank you in advance, kind regards

[brillout]

Have you tried using a soft symlink? See https://vike.dev/filesystem-routing#crawl-space.

so far this seems to be the path of least resistance

If that's the case, then Vike should eventually add some documentation about this techique at https://vike.dev/build-your-own-framework.

If you're up for it, we can discuss whether it really is the best setup. (Tbh I ain't sure that's the case.)

Why not publishing it as a private npm package while using semver? In other words, you'll be publishing and managing your internal framework similarly to an open source project like Vike (while keeping everything private and internal).

Also, in case you're company is up for it, you can sponsor Vike for a tigh-knit collaboration. (Actually, one of Vike's sponsor is also building an internal company framework).

[ThePendulum]

Thank you for your reply.

I tried symlinking to an outside directory, but then it becomes cumbersome to utilize dependencies from the framework (I will call our framework that, and Vike by its name). I gave it another try to refresh my thoughts on it. To give an example, some page configs import vike/types, but it's no longer inside the framework's context. If I install Vike inside the local site directory, even a slightly different patch version to the framework's copy of Vike will throw errors. Each issue like that has a solution I'm sure, but I'm worried that quickly turns onto a never-ending game of cat and mouse. Explicitly exporting and importing all the shared dependencies doesn't seem very practical either.

The symlink would still have the same issue as the directory itself, too; it either wants to be committed into the framework's repo or it gets ignored by Vike.

A private package could probably be made to work, but we don't currently use private packages elsewhere, so we would need to pay a subscription or manage a local piece of infrastructure for years to come almost exclusively to get around this issue. Until we do have a wider need for private packages, we're probably more likely to end up with a post-install script that rewrites the git flags in Vike's source code.

My described solution seems to be the most portable for our specific usecase, but I can't say how broadly this can be applied to other projects. However, several other approaches I tried would've conflicted with git ignores as well, I can't imagine no one else has run into this. The 'Build your own framework' guide diverges from our setup, in that it seems each individual site is expected to have its own Vike installation and config, while we'd like to treat the templates more like drop-in configuration files.

It unfortunate because conceptually Vike's crawling, inheritance and domain-driven file structure facilitate this approach almost perfectly, and it comes down pretty much entirely to --exclude-standard being hardcoded. Again, it's quite likely we'll just end up patching that locally, even though it's not perfect, it still seems like a smaller burden than the other options.

I could propose a sponsorship at some point, but this is the first time I've used Vike for this company, so it might be better to bring it up once it's made an impression, rather than while I'm figuring out how to make it work for us. It's also a pretty small company, what we can spare is probably closer to a gesture than an investment.

[brillout]

I see now 👍

It makes a lot of sense and it seems to be a good approach.

Would you mind keeping us updated about this approach and, eventually, publish a reproduction/template of this approach? For example, the initialization and build script could be interesting to share.

I'll implement VIKE_CRAWL={git:false} and make it part of the official documentation. ETA next week.

Looking forward to further iterate on Build Your Own Framework.

[brillout]

The site starts out completely broken because (site) is in .gitignore so Vike can't find the pages

Indeed, the symlink directory crawling didn't work and I removed it.

[brillout]

I'll implement VIKE_CRAWL={git:false} and make it part of the official documentation. ETA next week.

Done and pre-released as 0.4.217-commit-99ea561.

[ThePendulum]

Looking good! I will hand our framework to one of my colleagues soon for them to build a new site with it, and I'll report back on how they got on with it, potential pitfalls, improvements, etc., and given it's not a total catastrophy I can write up a small demo (it's pretty much just the "Domain-driven file structure" (marketing) example isolated into a submodule).

Thanks again!

[brillout]

Perfect! Looking forward to it.